


A Consuming Mind

by Dikhotomia



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Decisions, Canon-Typical Violence, Corruption, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Smut, F/F, Glove porn, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hallucinations, Hannibal AU, Murder Mystery, Obsessive Behavior, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, past trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia
Summary: "But she knows it's not her killer, the killer she'd been chasing across half the country since the very first body she had discovered. The body of the man who had nearly murdered her mother. More than anything she wanted to know who it was who had brought justice to her family, who made it a habit to bring justice to every family that had been wronged.Those families the law couldn't help.She still sought to put an identity to the name 'Hegemon Killer', wanted to know what sort of face hid under the veneer of shadow she saw at each of the crime scenes. She wanted to see the hands that crafted such beautiful carnage. Consistently she said she was here to catch them, consistently she said her curiosity was second to her desire to put this person behind bars.Consistently she lied.OR.Edeleth Hannibal AU.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 171
Kudos: 427





	1. Larghissimo

**Author's Note:**

> ALRIGHT HERE WE GO. I'm doin it, I'm making it a full fic cuz the brainworms got in and made themselves at home and now all I can think about is this AU so, since a lot of people were interested in it I decided to finally share it.
> 
> Unbeta'd as usual, I find my typos after I post.

She imagines what an instrument made from a human would sound like, strings made from delicate veins and body carved from various sturdy bones. Her fingers move idly with the vision in her mind, with the killer who swims just out of her peripheral.

"Eisner."

The note falls flat, grinding out painfully in a way that makes her cringe as she comes out of her thought, blinking back to the gruesome sight before them. Catherine stands a few feet away from her, eyes studying her face. There's a second of an apologetic flicker, attention swerving back to the body. What's left of the body, most of it used to craft a small, but elegant harp.

"An art killer," Byleth mutters, studying the flat edges of the instrument. "Meticulous in their work. I think it's obvious to say that this took a lot of time, the victim wasn't killed here and was likely held somewhere else for...several days so our killer could...make this."

But she knows it's not _her_ killer, the killer she'd been chasing across half the country since the very first body she had discovered. The body of the man who had nearly murdered her mother. More than anything she wanted to know who it was who had brought justice to her family, who made it a habit to bring justice to every family that had been wronged.

Those families the law couldn't help.

She still sought to put an identity to the name 'Hegemon Killer', wanted to know what sort of face hid under the veneer of shadow she saw at each of the crime scenes. She wanted to see the hands that crafted such beautiful carnage. Consistently she said she was here to catch them, consistently she said her curiosity was second to her desire to put this person behind bars.

Consistently she lied.

"Is it the Hegemon Killer?" Catherine asks abruptly, yanking her out of her thoughts for the second time that day. She quells her frustration, swallowing down the knot of heat that burns steady and slow underneath her skin and resists the urge to reach for the shadow that remains curled at the edge of her mind, tucked neat and safe where no one else but her could find it. Waiting for the day it would finally be a person.

"No," she says, staring down at the body, at the harp. "While the Hegemon killer is an art killer, they use every part of the body to create their scenes. Our killer now is just a copycat. A bad one at that." It might have fooled a lesser mind, someone thinking that the Hegemon simply couldn't find a use for the rest of the body, but Byleth could see. Could put together the pieces.

The rest of the body could have been a stand.

(' _T_ _his,'_ she could hear Manuela saying. _'This is why I worry about you working with the FBI, Catherine pushes you to get too close...and I'm afraid one of these days you won't be able to get back out._ ')

"Great," Catherine mutters, pushing her hand through her hair. "A copycat. Here I was hoping Hegemon had just decided to break their usual MO and start killing again early."

"I won't be surprised," Byleth ventures, hearing the thrum of strings distantly, accompanied by the flat edge of a knife blade smile from her shadow. "I won't be surprised if our copycat winds up dead. Hegemon doesn't enjoy being mocked or copied, it's an offense to them. To them their murders are justice, their victims criminals."

And the killer isn't the first, won't be the last, to do something like this. They just happen to be one of the best at their chosen version of justice, but Byleth has to wonder how they evaluate, struggles to fill in the blanks despite the way she can climb into the minds of other killers so easily. How does Hegemon decide the truly guilty? She wonders if it's someone who works with the police, or the courts. Someone close to the cases, but not close enough to arouse suspicion.

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Catherine grouses, heaving another sigh. "I don't like these justice killers, parading around thinking they're doing what's right when all they do is make more work for us."

Byleth wrings her hands, fingers tangling together and stretched till the tips tingle. "And Hegemon doesn't trust the justice system to get their jobs done. They see it as something corrupt, something content to let the rich go and the poor suffer. Hegemon once poised the questions; _'How many innocent people are in our prisons, blamed for crimes they didn't commit? How many criminals walk free just because they had the money to pay for a good lawyer?_ " She keeps her tone carefully neutral, expression contemplative. She doesn't need Catherine to know that she agrees.

But she also agrees that murder isn't the answer.

Not in every case.

Catherine snorts, something ugly and derisive, expression twisting into a scowl. "Doesn't mean Hegemon gets to just go around playing judge, jury and executioner."

She shifts slowly, untangling her fingers and shoving her hands in her pockets, shuffling her feet and getting out of the path of the crime scene techs coming and going. There's too many people now, too many people near her for her to feel comfortable in such a small space. "I don't think they do," she says, picking through her earlier wondering. She thinks, settles in the mind of a disenfranchised cop, a lawyer with a losing streak. Imagines the public outrage, her own outrage. "I think they see themselves as only the executioner, bringing down the axe when the public has voted after a criminal has walked free when they shouldn't have."

Hegemon, however, isn't on trial here. And she withdraws from her shadow with it's knife edge smiles and silver tongue, painting it over as something angry and burnt out. Something tired, but still perfectly in control. 

"Our Copycat is crying out to Hegemon, this kill is a love letter to them. A desire to be noticed. What do we know about our victim?" It's better to change topics, to press herself into a corner of the room in an attempt to make herself as small as possible so no one else speaks to her. It's better to change topics unless Catherine begins to think she's trying to defend the Hegemon Killer instead of trying to help her better understand them. She watches the anger play out on the other woman's face, watches as Catherine tucks it away behind the mask of professionalism she lets slip more then she intends.

The other woman wears her emotions on her sleeve and always wants to do whats right, but her sense of justice and desire to abide by the law gets in her way.

"Nothing, right now," Catherine says, turning back to the scene and the techs, shutters of cameras snapping as others comb for any evidence while they wait for the coroner. "You don't have to stay here and wait, Eisner, go home and get some rest. I'll call you if anything changes."

She doesn't need to be told twice, inclining her head and slipping out the door when no one else is looking.

\-----

But she doesn't sleep restfully, her dreams plagued with death and formless shadows crawling and clawing at her, seeking her attention. Her focus, seeking to make themselves at home in the shell of her body and turn her into them. And at the edge of it all her killer waits, crimson eyes burning deep into her soul.

She wakes, and not for the first time, in a cold sweat, hair and pajamas sticking to her skin. Early morning light filters in through drawn curtains, and several cats sleep in various places across her bed and around the room. She lays there for a time, breathing, calming the pounding of her heart before she gets up, careful not to disturb any of the cats as she goes, gathering clothes for the day and slipping in to the bathroom for a scalding shower.

The cats get fed after she's out, hair tied up in a messy ponytail and towel draped over her shoulders. All of them plod out from the room and every other nook and cranny they like to hide themselves in as soon as she puts the bowls down and starts her coffee, their distraction is her cue to strip her bed of it's sheets again, throwing them all in the hamper to wash later when she returns.

She's out the door by eight am, thermos full of hot coffee and stomach empty. A usual morning, she thinks as she slips behind the wheel of her car, starting it up and pulling down the driveway to make the long trip into the city. She stops for food before she reaches the office, then eats in the parking lot, drinking lukewarm coffee and trying not to think about the day ahead.

Trying not to think at all.

\-----

There's someone else in Catherine's office when she arrives, the sight of them halting her in her steps. A woman, she realizes a moment later, short but sturdy, the suit she wears framing the muscle hidden underneath. She stands, gloved hands folded behind her back, studying the pin board Catherine has in the corner, gruesomely decorated with crime scene photos and information on the victims.

"Um," she says, regretting it when the stranger's attention swings to her. Violet eyes meet her own, lips drawn in a carefully pleasant smile. Brown hair cropped short and slicked back, the ends tipped in silver. She's handsome, whoever she is, immaculately put together and giving off the air of someone fond of living in a much different circle then Byleth does. 

Aloof, but not arrogant.

"Hello," the stranger says, accented voice low and deceptively soothing. "I apologize, you look as though you were expecting someone else."

"I-" she starts, averting her eyes and focusing on the blood red of the other's tie. It's a nice contrast to the burgundy of her dress shirt and the all consuming black of the rest of her suit. It's also the perfect distraction to not have to look her in the eyes anymore, her mind trying to put together something that just...wasn't there.

Most people were a book and she could flip to any page and understand, this woman was a blank. "I was, I guess she just isn't here yet."

"No, I suspect she simply got held up. She is a busy woman after all." Slowly the stranger makes her way from the corner of the room to the nearby chair, every step carefully gauged as though Byleth was some kind of spooked animal. Which, if she thought about it, wasn't entirely far off. She wasn't good with new people, especially people she couldn't figure out.

"Yea," she replies, shuffling, hands stuffed in the pockets of her coat. "Look uh-"

"Edelgard," the stranger drawls, and Byleth catches herself meeting those eyes again, transfixed in the way the other woman balances her chin against her palm. Her gloves are leather and just as black as the rest of her suit, an odd thing to wear inside. "Edelgard Hresvelg, Catherine called me in to help with your Copycat." 

The consultant profiler, Byleth thinks, inwardly sighing at herself. A woman she'd heard about, but never seen until now. Edelgard was the type to make sure she didn't make herself known, simply doing her job and then leaving the rest up to the cops. She works her jaw to reply, eyes dropping to the floor in a way that might be considered rude. If Edelgard takes offense, she makes no comment.

"Byleth," she mumbles in reply, shuffling her feet a second time and finally making her way into the office. "Byleth Eisner." This time she manages to hold the other woman's stare, pulling Hegemon's confidence around her like a veil. "Sorry about that, Catherine didn't tell me we were calling in extra help so I was a little thrown off guard."

Edelgard's smile is warm, but her stare is flat and cold, assessing in a way that makes Byleth's skin crawl. It makes her wonder if the other woman noticed the change, noticed the way she pulled a facet of another's persona around her so easily. A social chameleon who never quite knew who she was underneath anymore.

"It's quite alright," Edelgard says, straightening in her seat. "I admit I, myself, was expecting Agent Nevrand. Though I can say with confidence I'm not unhappy about this outcome. I was going to have to meet the entire team sooner or later." 

Byleth feels like a butterfly on a cork board, pinned down by wings that no longer respond to her commands. Prey in the presence of a predator that hasn't quite decided how to proceed. She feels trapped, but not all together uncomfortable. It's...not a feeling she's sure how to process, and she tries her best to parse it as she takes the seat beside the newest addition to their team.

"Well, it's...uh, nice to meet you," Byleth says, shifting to get comfortable. "Though, and I'm sorry for saying this but, I'm not sure why Catherine called you. We're more then equipped to handle this case with the people we have."

Edelgard hums a note of laughter, looking away as she settles back in her seat. "She wanted a fresh set of eyes," she explains, leaning her cheek against her fist. "Not that she doubts your skill, sometimes it's just nice to get a new perspective."

She nods once, studying the angles of Edelgard's face. The sharp cut of cheekbones and the cut of her jaw. And she fills in the blanks while they speak, picking out bits and pieces of what little Edelgard presents her with. "So," she prompts, meeting her eyes again. "What's your take on this killer?"

"I'm in agreement with most of your initial assessment," Edelgard replies, glancing back at the board. "It's a cry for attention, your Copycat idolizes Hegemon, but their tribute was all wrong. Amateurish. As you said, Hegemon will see this as nothing more than offensive." Her eyes swivel back, her smile returned. "The Copycat didn't kill a criminal, just an innocent."

Byleth nods again and the breath she draws to speak is left to burn in her lungs when Catherine comes in, startled at the sight of both of them. "Sorry," she says, and it feels like she's apologizing for more than being late as she makes her way across the office and drops down at her desk. "Meeting ran longer than I expected."

"It's fine," Byleth assures, shrugging. "We were just discussing the case."

"Right," Catherine says, shuffling paperwork and getting right down to business. "About that, the Vic's name was Nathan Cross, grocery store worker. Living paycheck to paycheck. He had one count of petty theft, but..."

"But nothing the Hegemon Killer would deem worth their time," Edelgard interjects, and Byleth finally places her accent as German, faded slightly from being away from home for a few years.

"It's almost like the Copycat's call for attention is an attempt to earn Hegemon's ire..." Byleth comments, trailing off.

"Ah, but whether or not that will work is an entirely different matter. While Hegemon will see this as an offense, they're also not so foolish as to be baited. That, was were I disagreed, your Copycat won't end up dead. Hegemon won't come after them when they know the Copycat will inevitably be caught. The only way they'll end up dead, is if they walk."

And, Byleth thinks, making amends to her initial thoughts, they won't.

"Okay," Catherine says, folding her hands. "So where do we start looking for our Copycat?"

"I think you know the answer to that," Edelgard says before Byleth can, and it unsettles her a little. "If the Copycat is that desperate for attention, they'll have made an announcement somewhere. Not something outwardly obvious, but definitely something someone would notice if they were looking."

"A love note from one killer to another," Byleth finishes, rubbing her hands down her face. "Fan sites," she mutters into her palms, "or an online interview of one kind or another." 

"That's a lot to look through," Catherine comments. "Hegemon, regrettably, has a rather large fan-base."

"I'd look for an interview," Edelgard says, legs crossed, fingers threaded together across her stomach. "The Copycat will be proud of their work and want to flaunt it in a place it won't get lost among other posts."

"I'll have the tech team get on that," Catherine says, and it's as much as a dismissal as anything else. 

There's nothing to do but wait now, wait and hope.

Byleth is slow to rise from her seat, making her way out of the office and glancing down at her watch. Ten thirty.

A half hour till class.

"Byleth." She turns to find Edelgard behind her. "Do you have time to talk more? I'm rather interested on your take on the Hegemon Killer."

"Sorry," Byleth says, rubbing the back of her neck. "I have a class to teach at eleven, maybe another time?'

Edelgard nods, smile never faltering. "Another time."

Byleth slips away with a quiet 'bye' unsure if she wants to be in a room alone with Edelgard again.

But maybe the other woman could offer insight.


	2. Adagissimo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __
> 
> _"Skip. She's carrying the body, silk cascading over her shoulder and billowing slightly behind her as she threads between moonlight shadows to the place she had hidden the swords in. She sets it down, positions it carefully to make sure vacant eyes overlook the entire room. "An Empress on her throne," she drawls, picking one sword up and shoving it through one hand, then the other, the feet, through the ribs. Each blade goes in smoothly, embedding deeply into aged wood, no blood spilling from any of the wounds because it's all already been drained. "Overseeing her corrupt Empire." The last slides in through the throat, and she places a crown of barbed wire atop the head, careful despite the gloves she wears. "Twelve swords for twelve crimes...."_
> 
> _She turns then, looking out over the room, looking down and where she knows she now stands--"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Insert witty comment here.

She faces the second body with much of the same creeping dread as she did the first, steps slow as she eases her way between the flurry of police and agents and techs. There's no familiar faces today, Catherine having sent her here with a call and an apology that she'd be running late. There's no one here to buffer the relentless motion of activity and bounding emotions that threaten to drown her as much as the killer's lingering presence does. It's too familiar, and for a horrifying moment it feels like coming home.

There's no one here to tell everyone to back off and be quiet, no one here to tell everyone she needs the room to think and parse together whatever pieces she could. So she endures the odd stares as she circles the scene, endures the whispers and the presence of too many people pressing against the barriers she tries to keep erected.

_The world goes silent, officers and agents and crime scene techs all fading into the background and disappearing all together. She's alone with the body and the world flows in reverse; the swords disappear, the silk coils back around like a wedding veil._

_Time skips, the body vanishes. Time skips, and she's holding a duffel bag full of swords._

_Time flows forward, her steps precise as she crosses into the hall with her duffel bag, storing it away in hiding while people still roamed, unquestioning of her presence there or what she might be carrying. "I store the swords before I bring the body I've prepared, a bolder move then usual, but I am confident I won't get caught."_

_Skip. She's carrying the body, silk cascading over her shoulder and billowing slightly behind her as she threads between moonlight shadows to the place she had hidden the swords in. She sets it down, positions it carefully to make sure vacant eyes overlook the entire room. "An Empress on her throne," she drawls, picking one sword up and shoving it through one hand, then the other, the feet, through the ribs. Each blade goes in smoothly, embedding deeply into aged wood, no blood spilling from any of the wounds because it's all already been drained. "Overseeing her corrupt Empire." The last slides in through the throat, and she places a crown of barbed wire atop the head, careful despite the gloves she wears. "Twelve swords for twelve crimes...."_

_She turns then, looking out over the room, looking down and where she knows she now stands--_

"Is it Hegemon?" One of the agents asks, pulling her attention. Short cropped blonde hair and piercing green eyes. "Sure seems that way, this one is a lot less clumsy then the copycat from a couple weeks ago."

Slowly she looks back, eyeing the sight of the body impaled so neatly to the chair. Each blade placed so carefully as to make sure the body wasn't needlessly damaged. It's clean, precise, and no part of the body has gone to waste. "Yes," she says, leaning back on her heels. "This is Hegemon. This is their answer to the Copycat. They're watching."

Her hands shake and the tremor spreads up along her spine, blossoming as pain in the recesses of her skull, fingers pressing to temples and palms into eyes.

"What do you mean, 'watching?' " the agent prompts, and Byleth finds herself thankful for the woman's lower tone, but not for the sudden closeness. "Is Hegemon actually interested in this Copycat? I thought they'd be offended."

"Oh they are," Byleth says into her hands, breathing through the pain and the overwhelming anxiety threatening to eat her alive. "Very offended, this is their way of saying that they won't intervene, won't help or take the Copycat under their wing like the Copycat might want. Hegemon is content to stay back and let us do our jobs...but they're also watching _us_." She looks up again between her fingers, into the clouded eyes of the corpse.

Staring out, her own mind emptying and becoming vacant. _What did you see?_

"Watching us to make sure we do our jobs?"

Byleth startles, inhaling sharply as the world comes rushing back from wherever she had begun to wander. "Yes," she says, licking her lips and stepping a little away from the agent's side. "They believe we will, so they see no reason to step in and do the job for us...but that doesn't mean they won't if there's absolutely no other choice." This time they were playing judge instead of executioner. Her shadow stands beside her, red eyes alight and smile malicious.

( _'I see you.'_ )

\------

"Victim was a business woman, Victoria Cowl. Fitting to Hegemon's MO she had a wrap sheet. Fond of taking advantage of employees in...various ways, scamming people out of money and just generally being rather rude to everyone else. A year ago there was a case opened against her for the abuse and death of one of one such employee." Byleth doesn't hear half of what Catherine says as she talks, mind wandering as she regards the pin-board in the corner of the room again. Victoria's picture is set opposite of Nathan's, string linking them to the map in the center.

"The case was, predictably, dismissed...."

"What did her company have to say about it?" Byleth asks, eyes shifting back to where Catherine sits, papers spread haphazardly across her desk and exasperation tinging the edges of her expression. 

"No one said a damn thing," Catherine replies. "Higher ups covered it up because she got things done quickly."

"I'm sure her employees are relieved," Byleth remarks, the words like chalk in her mouth. "Hopefully for them they don't get someone worse assigned to them." She ignores the look the other woman pins her with, focusing instead on the pencils collected in the holder. "Did the tech team find anything on our Copycat?" She asks when the silence gets too uncomfortable and Catherine's stare starts to weigh on her in a way that makes her twitchy.

Distract. Move on. 

"They did," Catherine says after another moment, shuffling papers. "A post on a tabloid website. An article aptly titled 'interview with a murderer.'"

She takes the paper Catherine holds out to her, looking down at the printed article. It's what she expects, details about the murder, about the victim. About how the killer caught Nathan off guard when he was leaving work, how it was revenge for what Nathan had stolen. "So the Victim stole something from our Copycat," Byleth says, tapping her fingers against the chair arm. "That means the Copycat knew Nathan in some capacity. Or knows someone who knew him."

"He's calling himself "The Conductor," and our tabloid reporter played into that demand nicely," Catherine adds, chair creaking as she shifts. "Now everyone's starting to call him that."

She sees it as she continues to scan the article, words running together until it becomes hard to tell one sentence from the next. "I plan to make an Orchestra," she reads, raising her eyebrows.

"An outrageously bold claim." 

Edelgard is there when she looks up, wide eyed and with a pins and needles feeling in her fingers. Her suit is a deep blue today, tie blending in with the black of her dress shirt. She's still wearing her gloves. Byleth still doesn't comment on them. "He might change his tune when he sees the message Hegemon left."

"I heard about that," Edelgard replies, lowering herself into the chair beside her, fingers smoothing down the front of her suit. "But I don't believe he will, as I'm sure you don't. If anything it will make him more determined to prove himself knowing that Hegemon is even bothering to pay attention. That, I believe, may be his downfall."

"But...why decide to watch? Why even acknowledge the Conductor?" Catherine's fingers tap against the desk, beats of four that Byleth keeps count of as a needed distraction. Edelgard watches them both without moving, waiting for what Byleth has to say.

"Because no one has ever been so bold as to outright call out to them like this, this is the first time they've had someone dare to try and tread on the same ground they walk. As I said in my report, it's grievously offensive to them still, but they also can't deny their curiosity." _One two three four, five six seven eight..._

Catherine snorts. "Do they think they're some kind of God?"

"No, not in the slightest. Hegemon consistently has mocked religious establishments through some of their murders. The hanged priest, crucified upside down; the choir boy in the confessional box, strangled with his own tongue and all his sins written on the walls. _Where's your God now?_ " She shakes her head, watching the subtle curve of a smile on Edelgard's mouth. She wonders if she's seeing things when she blinks, seeing nothing but a perfectly impassive blank when she meets her eyes again.

"They see the church as something just as corrupt as the justice system. If I had to guess, Hegemon sees themself as a Demon. But I don't think that's right either..." She trails off, looking down at her hands. 

"Well, whatever Hegemon sees themself as, we'll catch them. Just like we're going to catch the Conductor," Catherine states, rapping her knuckles against the files as she pushes up to her feet. "We'll interview people who knew Nathan, friends, family coworkers...the usual. See if we can uncover anything about the Conductor."

"You'll want to lean on anyone who seems particularly bitter about him, they may not be the Conductor necessarily, but they could lead us to him," Byleth says, shifting in her seat. "Make sure to ask everyone who knew him if petty theft was a habit or if it was just a one time thing. It'll help narrow down the pool and give us something more to focus on." Though she's sure more people would die before they caught him onto him.

It was just a matter of how many.

\----

Her class is nothing more than a blur of passed time, her mind half registering anything she says or any question she answers. She moves on auto pilot and coffee, clicking through slides and staring up at bodies and out at the myriad of faces of hopeful trainees. She can't help but wonder how many of them she'll send to their deaths, how many will pass her class and move on into the field, how many she'll hear about and how many will simply just vanish.

It wouldn't be the first time.

"Have you eaten today?" 

Her classroom is empty save for her and the woman who stands so casually a few feet away from her. "I-uh, n- no. Not unless you count a few granola bars and a thermos of coffee." She hadn't been hungry enough at the time to bother with a full meal, getting by on the bare minimum to keep her stomach from trying to turn itself inside out. 

Which it was trying it's best to do currently, growling loud enough Edelgard's eyebrows raise and Byleth's face heats all the way down her neck. 

"I don't," the other woman drawls. "I was just about to have a late lunch, why don't you join me?"

There's no reason for her to turn Edelgard down, beyond an excuse of wanting to head home early since neither of them are needed on the case currently. She feels cornered suddenly, forced into a social situation she usually did her best to try and avoid. But she's too curious, so she boxes up the anxiety, shoving it away and swallowing past the knot in her throat. "S-sure but...uh the cafeteria food is terrible...unless you planned to go to one of the restaurants around the area..."

It takes her a moment to register the bag Edelgard has slung over her shoulder and the arm she drapes across the top of it. "I tend to bring my own lunches," she says, drawing Byleth's eyes back up to hers. "I just made too much this time." Her lips quirk in that almost smile again, eyes narrowing subtly in amusement at her own joke.

"You cook?" she asks, gingerly following Edelgard out of the classroom and down the hallways, sticking close to her side as they enter the comings and goings of trainees and teachers alike.

"I do," Edelgard replies, glancing at her. "I've always been very careful about what I put in my body," she adds, shrugging slightly. "It made sense to just do it all myself, so I knew exactly what I was eating and from where. It ended up becoming a hobby, among other things." She's careful what she gives away, Byleth notices, only ever answering exactly in the framing of the questions she's asked. Giving just enough to keep people engaged without sounding full of herself.

And Byleth finds herself in the unique position of wanting to know _more_ , even painfully aware Edelgard has so casually primed the proverbial hook now caught in her cheek. 

_Damn her._

"What about you?" Edelgard asks as Byleth directs them to a place to eat away from the drone of people's conversations. Somewhere out on the grounds where Byleth feels less trapped, squinting into the afternoon sunlight flooding across the courtyard.

"...I..fish?" It feels decidedly lame to admit, the very nature of her only hobby behind climbing into the minds of killers. And only one of them is something she enjoys. "I can make very basic dishes involving my catches," she adds, slowly sitting down across from where Edelgard has settled at one of the few tables outside.

"Oh?" The other woman looks at her with a hint of curiosity between placing down Tupperware between the two of them.

"It's not much, but It gets me by when I get a chance," she rushes out, looking down at the Tupperware and the food contained within it. All perfectly prepared portions, made both for presentation and practicality.

"Potato Salad," Edelgard says, spearing a fork in one of the potatoes and shoving the container closer to her side of the table. "Accompanied by turkey sandwiches. I admit it's not much compared to what I usually make, but I was in a bit of a rush."

Byleth balks, jaw working uselessly. She can't even begin to imagine what 'not in a rush' looks like for this woman, eyes dipping back to the second set of Tupperware Edelgard pushes in her direction. The sandwich itself looks far beyond the kind of thing she had ever bought or made before. High quality bread, hand cut turkey, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise she's almost willing to bet Edelgard made herself.

"And this is a hobby?" She asks, lifting the sandwich out from it's container, pausing a moment before taking a bite. The flavor is something else, everything all blending together so perfectly she has to take another second to process it all. "It's really, really good," she mumbles between mouthfuls, reaching over to try the salad.

It's an experience. 

"I'm glad," Edelgard says, more interested in watching her then eating her own. "Drink?" At Byleth's nod she shifts, leaning down to fetch a thermos and pour them both a cup. "Coffee," she says, setting the cup down in front of her. "Though I imagine a different blend from what you're used to."

Byleth has little doubt of that, the conversation dying off as Edelgard finally directs her attention to her food and she focuses on finishing her own. She decides, halfway through her share of the potato salad, that she's been ruined for any other aside from Edelgard's. She finds herself watching the other woman as she eats, all controlled grace and quiet moments of savoring the food. It's something she files away to add to her little mental collage about the still fairly mysterious help.

Her phone rings before she can ask her next question, both of them fixated on the sound of it coming from her jeans pocket. "Sorry," she says, digging for it. "It's probably Catherine..."

Edelgard sips her coffee, and if she's offended, she doesn't show it in the slightest.

"Hello?" She says, turning away slightly.

 _"We have another body,"_ Catherine says without preamble, and Byleth casts a side glance at the woman across from her. _"I need you to come down and take a look, but I'm pretty sure it's the Conductor again."_

"Text me the address, I'll...come over soon."

 _"Sure, and if Dr. Hresvelg is with you, bring her along."_ Catherine hangs up, leaving her blinking at the screen and then over the edge of it, watching Edelgard watch her.

"They found another body," she says, taking a sip of coffee and immediately wishing she had more time to savor it. Wishes she had time to ask the other woman what blend it was and if it was possible if she could have more. "Catherine wants us to come down."

"Us?" Edelgard parrots, distinctly amused. "Very well, I'll follow you down then." She's already moving to collect the empty Tupperware, neatly stacking it all together and placing it back in her bag. Everything she does is all perfectly controlled, no motion wasted, no energy expended that doesn't need to be. It's almost predatory.

"Sure."

They leave soon as her phone buzzes again, Byleth sharing the address with Edelgard before she watches the other woman disappear into the crowd.

She's still not sure how she feels.


	3. Largo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It isn't until she's broken free from the city that she notices she's not alone on the winding country road, eyes catching the sight of a sleek black Aston Martin behind her, sunlight off the windshield obscuring the driver. It's not hard for her to guess who it was, thinking of Edelgard and her fancy suits. It was hardly a surprise to think she'd drive a nice car. If anything it just adds another piece to the puzzle, another stroke on an in progress mural, paint still fresh and heady._
> 
> _The Aston Martin follows her when she pulls into the driveway her GPS indicates, both of them slowing to a crawl along the narrow path up to the house hidden among the trees. It was a nice place, she thinks as she parks among the scattering of police cruisers and other assorted law enforcement vehicles, if not for the gruesome scene she knew she was about to witness. "_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally the new stuff. This is much much longer then the previous two.

She finishes her coffee during her trek across campus to the parking lot, still more than a little disappointed when she drains the last of it, left with an empty cup she reminded herself to hand back to Edelgard when they arrived. For the moment it sits in her cup holder, rattling slightly with the rumble of the car engine as she fumbles with her phone.

Five minutes later she's pulling out into traffic, looking in her rear-view with the realization she has no idea what kind of car Edelgard drives, nor did the other woman know what she did.

An oversight on both their parts, one that made her happy she at least had the thought to share the address. "Good work, Byleth," she mutters, following the GPS' instructions. "You only half fucked up this time." It was a better outcome then a full fuck up, she thinks, weaving along through afternoon traffic. 

It isn't until she's broken free from the city that she notices she's not alone on the winding country road, eyes catching the sight of a sleek black Aston Martin behind her, sunlight off the windshield obscuring the driver. It's not hard for her to guess who it was, thinking of Edelgard and her fancy suits. It was hardly a surprise to think she'd drive a nice car. If anything it just adds another piece to the puzzle, another stroke on an in progress mural, paint still fresh and heady.

The Aston Martin follows her when she pulls into the driveway her GPS indicates, both of them slowing to a crawl along the narrow path up to the house hidden among the trees. It was a nice place, she thinks as she parks among the scattering of police cruisers and other assorted law enforcement vehicles, if not for the gruesome scene she knew she was about to witness. 

She's greeted by radio chatter as she steps out from her car, catching sight of Catherine as she moves between the officers standing around outside the house. "It's about time you two got here!" she calls, lifting her arm. "We've been waiting for you."

"Our apologies," Edelgard says and Byleth glances to her where she's leaned half out of her car, face schooled into careful amusement. "Traffic at this time of day, as you know, is a task to navigate." She rises to her feet as she speaks, stepping around the door. "So it required a bit more time."

The car door solidly thumps shut. No one moves beyond Edelgard slipping her hands into her pockets, head tilting slightly to keep both of them in her line of sight. Always watching, never quite willing to let anyone fall into a blind spot. A habit she shares, a habit she's seen in a lot of law enforcement.

But none quite like Edelgard.

"Yea," Byleth agrees, rubbing the back of her neck. "Everyone was coming back from lunch." Her shoulder jerks in an almost shrug, attention fixing somewhere between both women with her. "But we're here now."

And in the end, that was the most important part of it. Even if she knew a lot of the techs were probably chomping at the bit to get to work. 

"True enough," Catherine says, half turning. "Well, let's go."

Byleth nods once, falling easily into step beside Catherine as the other woman leads them up to the house. Edelgard eases in and out of her peripheral like a cast shadow interrupted by passing clouds. The gathered officers part as they slip underneath the police tape, stepping in to the air conditioned chill of the house.

"Victim is Carolina Palmer, 26, student. Like Nathan she was employed at a grocery store. Lived here with her parents." Byleth hears half of what Catherine is saying, filing it away as she takes in the sight of the house. Warm, welcoming. Distantly she imagines coming home everyday, imagines greetings and long chats about what happened that day or about anything else under the sun. Well aged wood creaks faintly under their feet, kept clean through the effort of the entire family.

Bookshelves frame the living room, furniture all arranged neatly around the coffee table set in the middle. The TV is still on, droning, forgotten in the wake of the shock of what the family found. "Where's the family?" she asks, following Catherine through it, mindful not to track across the carpet.

"Upstairs with Galatea," Catherine responds, glancing over her shoulder. "Carolina had been house sitting while her parents were away. Mom and Dad were worried when they came home and Carolina wasn't there to greet them like she usually was..." She trails off.

"Mrs. Palmer, worried that her daughter may be ill, searched the house....finding her young Carolina dead," Edelgard murmurs, finishing the thought Catherine had begun. "A terrible thing, that, for a parent to find their child dead."

"A child should always outlive a parent?" Byleth comments, casting a sideways glance.

"No family should find another murdered," Edelgard corrects, eyebrows raising subtly. "Death is a natural part of life, and while still distressing, finding a family member who has died of natural causes...or illness, elicits a slightly different response compared to finding them murdered." She waves a hand, focus set forward. Byleth fills in what the other woman doesn't say, reading in between the lines of her statements.

"If you two are done with your morbid conversation," Catherine drawls, leaning her forearm against the door-frame. "I have a body for you to look at."

"There is no true escape from the morbid," Edelgard says, easing her way by where Catherine leans. "It is simply a facet of humanity, we may attempt to avoid it, or even run from it. But it finds us regardless. Sometimes faster then others, like in the space of a conversation."

Byleth bites back her smile, aware of how inappropriate it would be. Catherine doesn't share her barely restrained amusement.

"Do you think this is any less morbid then what we were speaking of?" Edelgard asks as Byleth slips in behind her, staring down at the body on display. "Or more?"

"Hell of a question, Doctor," Catherine says, leaning against the wall behind them, arms crossed across her chest. 

"With all due respect, Agent Nevrand, I wasn't asking you." Her smile is polite, but thin, lips pressed and muscles in her cheeks shifting with the clench of her jaw. It's a subtle thing, one that goes unnoticed to everyone but Byleth, eyes fixated on the flicker of something that swims by behind her eyes.

"Both are morbid in their own ways," Byleth says finally, meeting Edelgard's eyes when the other woman's attention flicks back to her. It's easy for her to hold it, and she finds a strange comfort in the doctor. A rock amid rapids for her to hold on to to keep from being overwhelmed by the water of emotions roaring by.

She begins to suspect Edelgard is here for more than just helping with cases.

"But talking about death and facing it are two very different things," she finishes, looking down at the body again. "Looking at it...is marginally worse." 

"When you speak of it you can detach yourself from it, but when presented with it, you have no choice but to process it." Edelgard circles, gingerly stepping around the corpse. "Even if you don't do it right off, like all things, inevitably it will catch up with you." 

"....Are you profiling me?" She asks, distressed suddenly, shoulders tucked up against her ears and hands balled into fists. "Is she profiling me?" She rounds on Catherine then, momentarily forgetting the corpse spread out in front of them. 

"I'm terribly sorry," Edelgard says as she turns back to look at her, standing across the room, hands so innocently folded behind her. "I've always had to know how everyone ticks, much like you."

"Well," Byleth starts, anger dissipating as quickly as it came. "Don't, okay? I don't like it when people try and poke around in my head."

"Duly noted," Edelgard says, inclining her head apologetically. "Now, what do you see?"

She almost wants to ask her to leave as she directs her attention again, not used to using her skills with people other than Catherine or Manuela in the room with her. But Edelgard is as unobtrusive as Catherine is, seemingly making herself part of the scenery of the room. She doesn't think about it.

The body is contorted, prostrated, clouded eyes staring up at the ceiling. She's split down the middle, skin and muscle peeled back to the bone. It's been cleaned, she realizes, each rib stark white in the afternoon sun spilling in through the window. The organs are all gone, lungs and stomach and heart all cut free and missing. "Some of her organs are missing," she says, looking up at where Edelgard leans a little nearby her, doing her own cursory examination. 

"Our killer created a xylophone this time," Edelgard comments, bending down to look at the way the victim's arms and legs had been twisted to create a 'stand.' "Not that any of his instruments will actually sound."

Byleth steps back. Closes her eyes.

_When she opens them again the office's occupants are different, the TV still drones on in the living room; a news program, talking about the Conductor case, about Hegemon's reply. She feels a sense of pride at it, knowing now that Hegemon's eyes are upon her. But there's also an ugly sense of envy that she has to share the spotlight, that Hegemon isn't just watching her._

_She smiles when Carolina returns, class-books in hand and takes up the spot next to where she sits. "I know Carolina," she drawls to herself, going through the motions of helping her study. "Not well, we're not friends, but acquaintances. We met through a mutual friend. I'm staying for a few days to tutor her, or so she thinks." She asks when Carolina's parents are going to return, asks if they'd mind her having a man here and laughs a little when Carolina dismisses it all._

_"I strike when she turns her back," she says, books upended from her lap as she moves, getting her arms around Carolina's neck and folding her back against her body, squeezing, tucking her head close to the struggling woman's to keep her from getting loose or clawing her eye. "I decide to be merciful and snap her neck." Her arms shift, quick and brutal, hearing the bone give before Carolina drops to the floor in a motionless heap._

_"This is retribution."_

She blinks back to the present on a shuddering inhale, hands trembling and sweat pooling underneath the collar of her shirt. Edelgard is watching her, quietly fascinated by whatever it was she saw and Byleth immediately latches on to her detached calm. Uses it to calm the racing of her pulse and the quaking in her bones. 

"He was here," she whispers. "Staying here." She notes the books, stacked neatly on the desk. "Under the guise of tutoring her." 

"So he knew her?" Edelgard asks, steps ringing off the hardwood. The other woman does it on purpose, making herself louder so Byleth doesn't get startled by her approach.

She both hates it and is thankful for it, shuffling in place as she curls in on herself.

"He knew her but not well, they...they shared a mutual friend, probably the same friend he believes she betrayed." They're narrowing it down, slowly, bit by bit and she feels relieved by the idea that maybe...

Maybe they'd catch him before she got too close.

"So," Catherine says, turning to wave the waiting crime scene techs in. She recognizes Lysethia, Linhardt and Ignaz as they all filter in with a few others, each of them nodding slightly in greeting as they pass. "We're looking for someone who goes to the same college, frequents the grocery store...and knew both our victims on some level."

"He could also be a TA," Byleth says, sniffing. "So they're at least worth a look too." Nervously she rubs her sleeve across her face, wiping some of the sweat there away. She wants to get outside, wants to go home. "He's...been emboldened now, he's trying to prove himself to Hegemon. But he's angry that Hegemon isn't just watching him. He knows they're also keeping an eye on us."

"Well, I guess Dr. Hresvelg was right, that Hegemon's response would be his downfall," Catherine says, rubbing a hand down her face. "Here's hoping we can get this wrapped up soon before this bastard kills another one." Every death is a hit to all of them, a reminder to tell them they should have moved faster, figured things out quicker.

Byleth nods, then slips out of the office with a 'I need some fresh air' thrown over her shoulder. She goes back through the living room and out onto the porch through the ajar sliding door. The sense of relief is immediate, her mind quieting as she drops down onto the top step and rests her face in her hands, focusing on just breathing, listening to the birds and the distant drone of conversation. She uses it to center herself, to ground herself back in reality, in her own mind.

She was not the Conductor.

"Well, if it isn't Byleth Eisner. She who catches monsters by thinking like them."

Her breath catches in her throat, sawing and hard, leaving an ache in it's wake. She looks up with every muscle primed to move, to get up and run or fight. "Who-?" She blinks once, twice, the unnatural flame orange of her hair rattling a name loose from the space in her mind dedicated to keeping track of people who definitely wouldn't help her.

"Kronya," she says, followed by, "You can't be here." And, "How did you get by the police line?" She's on her feet before she knows her body has moved, defensively standing at the top of the stairs. Of all the ways for this day to get worse, an appearance by their favorite tabloid blogger was right there up on that list.

"I came in through the woods, scaling the fence proved to be the real challenge. I thought you had retired from all this, rumor has it that you were 'too unstable' to be trusted on crime scenes anymore." Kronya stills at the base of the steps, looking up at her slightly with a smirk Byleth half wants to wipe off her face.

She doesn't, stubbornly digging her heels in and glaring down at her. "That's really none of your business," she says, gritting her teeth. "Besides, you talk about instability like you aren't interviewing murderers." It's a childish dig, and one that likely would come back to bite her in some form or another.

But it's out.

"I like to give both sides of the story. Everyone's always interested in the killers, even if they're repulsed by their crimes. Always wanting to know why they did it or how. My readers have been _dying_ for an interview with Hegemon." Kronya takes a step, then another, and Byleth struggles not to take a step back. Letting her get inside would be a very...very bad thing.

"As if Hegemon would waste their time with someone like you," she mutters, repressing the urge to roll her eyes. Hegemon wasn't the type to talk, not to tabloids, not to internet forums, not to anyone. They let their kills do the talking, their art.

"And why not?"

Kronya is too close now, within inches and it sets Byleth's teeth on edge, anxiety webbing up and throughout her muscles and bones and making her itch. She twitches, shudders, shoves her hands in her pockets and glowers mulishly at her. "Please step back," she says, quiet, more of a plead then a demand. There's a very select few people she lets this close to her, and Kronya wasn't someone she ever considered adding to the list.

"My bad, though I guess I probably shouldn't get too close. Wouldn't want to set you off or anything." It's bait, and Kronya smiles as she takes a few steps back until Byleth's anxiety eases and the tension leaves in small increments.

She doesn't rise to it.

"You need to leave," she says instead, pinning her with a look that does absolutely nothing. "This is an active crime scene." One that, for once in her life, she wishes she hadn't left now. At the same time Kronya might have gotten in, and Catherine would have been in an even more foul mood.

"I will, I just-" Kronya stops, eyes drifting over her shoulder and face paling slightly. "Dr. Hresvelg..."

She hears her behind her then, shoes clicking against the wood as she approaches, looming in her peripheral. "Miss Lenz," Edelgard drawls, disdainful. She turns slightly, raising her voice enough to call, "Agent Nevrand!"

Catherine surfaces a moment later, blustering. "Figures you'd show up! Get outta here! You've screwed up enough of our investigations lately!" She slips between where her and Edelgard stand, gentle and polite despite her anger. She takes the steps two at a time, waving a hand at Kronya like she was a particularly stubborn stray.

She's loud enough a few officers come out back to see, all of them various shades of confused to see someone past the perimeter.

"Escort Miss Lenz out of here," Catherine barks, then wheels around as the officers move to carry out her order. The look Kronya fixes her with is dirty, and she keeps her own expression neutral.

She doesn't relax.

\---------

The Conductor haunts her nightmares, leading a shadow orchestra. Glistening bone instruments stark in spindly fingers. The sound is haunting, hollow, echoing through the concert hall built on flesh and blood. At the head of it all the conductor stands, masculine in stature, body swaying with the rise and fall of notes. Behind her her shadow looms, tall and demonic as ever, strings like sinew linking the two of them together.

_She is a puppet, she is a member of the orchestra. She plays. The bone violin sings a high distorted note--_

Her eyes snap open, breath heaving into her lungs as her alarm shrieks into the early morning light. The dream fades as she reaches over to slap the button on her clock, plunging the room back into silence. "Fuck," she mutters, pressing her hands to her face and laying on her back, heart thundering in her ears.

She knows it's absolutely time to get up when one of her cats decides her chest makes a great seat, chartreuse eyes impassively peering down at her. "You have to move," she mumbles, sliding her fingers along his fur. "Because until you do I can't get up, and if I can't get up none of you get fed." She raises her eyebrow, scratching behind his ears and under his chin, soothed by the sound of his purr. "You can explain to your siblings why they only get the left over kibble that's still in their bowls from last night." She hears the others shifting around, stretching and chrriping at each other.

"Come on, Arthur," she says, easing slowly up until he moves. "There we go, alright up up, don't just settle on my lap." He keeps going, grudgingly climbing off her and settling on the bed nearby her as she pushes the sheets off her and gets up. The chill of the house is a welcome reprieve on feverish skin, and she shivers with it slightly as she makes her way into the kitchen, pushing her hands through her hair and sighing.

She runs on autopilot from then on, going through the routine while letting her mind wander to the docks, grounding herself in the sound of water lapping against wood and the whistle of a casted line.

The drive to Quantico is a quiet one.

\-----

"Revenge killers," she states, turning to face the slide that clicks onto the screen. She knows what she's saying today, is grounded enough in her own mind to filter her words and teach the lesson instead of letting whatever part of her runs her brain when she's not present do it. "Kill because they believe they've been slighted in some way or someone they're close to has been." She clicks over slides as she speaks, turning back to her class to watch them, pens scraping against paper as they write or keys faintly clicking as others type.

"They believe that the only way they can forgive the person who slighted them is with their death. And their motives can range from something exceedingly petty to something gravely serious. Like theft or infidelity all the way up to murder of a loved one." She trails off at that, looking back up at her slides, each one housing the name, face and profile of various revenge killers. None of them ever as famous as The Conductor is now.

He's implied, but left off the list.

"Normally it's a one off thing, they get their revenge and try to move on with their lives. But sometimes they get a taste for it, and continue, finding other people that have been wronged and exacting revenge. They're different from Justice killers, in that Justice killers go after criminals who have been proven as such, where Revenge killers will chase anyone for just about any reason." And sometimes it gets hard to tell the difference between them all, each type of murderer, when all of them have some corner of her mind. Filled to the brim with grisly scenes and tasteless thoughts. She fills the rest of the time with giving our assignments and taking questions, stomping down on her discomfort of having her students in her personal space to show her things they need help with.

Manuela files in as everyone else is leaving, weaving between students as Byleth is packing up her things for the day. "How are you doing, Byleth?" She asks as soon as she's close enough, as soon as the last few students leave the room and their presence becomes a retreating drone in the hallway.

"Fine," she replies, shuffling papers and tucking them away. "I mean as fine as I can be, given the circumstances." She doesn't really want to talk about it, she never does, if she was honest. Didn't like the idea of people poking around in her head despite the fact she trusted Manuela enough to let her and apparently couldn't keep Edelgard out even if she tried.

"I've been worried ever since Catherine came to talk to me about bringing you back out on the field. I didn't want her to," Maunela says, crossing her arms. "But I also know that you're aware of your limits, just promise me you'll stop if it gets to be too much?" 

"It's always 'too much' Manuela," she replies, shutting her briefcase. "Getting into their heads, seeing and feeling and thinking like they do. It's been too much right from the day I got into Hegemon's head and couldn't quite figure out how to get back out. I can run away from it, but I can't escape it..." she trails off, remembering what Edelgard had said to her the day before. "Not entirely. I tried running, so now it's time to face it again. Besides, I have people to help me pick my way out of things if I find myself unmoored." She offers a slight smile, shrugging.

"You do, and you'd do well to remember that," Manuela chides, her smile fond but exasperated. "Since you say these things but when it comes down to it you dig yourself in and suffer in silence." 

She shrugs. "I don't think I'll get away with that anymore," she says, dryly. "Dr. Hresvelg won't let me." Though she knew Edelgard wouldn't always be on scene, knew that the other woman had patients she had to see and a life to live in the meantime. She hated to admit the other woman's calm was something she needed desperately.

"And that's a good thing, it's why I recommended her to Catherine in the first place." Manulea looks a little guilty at the admission and it leaves Byleth feeling not at all surprised, her earlier suspicions confirmed. "Aside from the fact that she can add insight to help you solve cases." Edelgard is similar to her, she knows, in the way they think about killers.

"Yea," she says, hunkering in the collar of her coat as they leave the classroom side by side. "She told me that she'd gotten called in to give a new perspective, completely hid the fact that she was there to keep me stable too." 

And it was smart of her, because had she lead with that Byleth wouldn't have responded as well. Knows she would have shut down, dug her heels in and lashed out at Catherine for it, at Edelgard for daring to even think about profiling her sooner than she had.

"You told her about me, didn't you?" She asks, glancing sidelong at her. "At least what you could."

"Guilty."

Byleth huffs an abortive laugh. It was probably a good idea.

\------

An hour later she finds herself back in Catherine's office, lunch sitting like a lead weight in her stomach. She sits half curled in one of the chairs Catherine has scattered around, leg drawn to her chest and chin propped atop her knee. 

"I have officers and agents alike conducting interviews at the grocery store where the victims worked and the school they all attended. I'm getting ready to go down and join them, I want you to come," Catherine says over the top of a folder, watching her.

"Sure," she replies, rubbing the back of her hand across the bridge of her nose. "I think he might have been or is in the school band. He wanted to be the conductor but for some reason wasn't able to, hence his self given name and wanting to make an Orchestra of his own."

Catherine nods, rising to her feet and heading out of the office. Byleth slides out of her chair and follows in her wake.

"That narrows it down even more," Catherine says, glancing sidelong at her.

"I should have come up with it sooner," Byleth mutters. "Carolina might still be alive."

"And she might not have, Byleth," Catherine states, pushing her way through the doors. "Don't blame yourself for this."

But she does, and it's not something she can just turn off. She bites her tongue, shrugging her shoulders and climbing into Catherine's car. They ride in silence, Byleth with her forehead pressed against the glass, watching the scenery blur by.

Catherine's phone rings in the middle of their trip, ringtone shrill and jarring, echoing in her ears. "Agent Nevrand," she says, sharp, eyes still on the road. "Is that so? Good work, Galatea, we're on our way now." She hangs up, dropping the phone in her lap. "You were right about the Conductor being a band kid, according to Agent Galatea both victims had a mutual classmate who left the band over 'creative differences' as he cited it. He worked at the grocery store for a while until Nathan stole money from his drawer and got him in trouble for it. He lost his job."

Byleth nods, parsing all the information. "And Carolina?"

"Reported a friend for cheating on an exam," Catherine answers, pulling into the university parking lot. "After telling said friend she wouldn't."

"Sounds about right, both of them are betrayals that would warrant the Conductor's brand of revenge. Do we have a name?"

"Richard Epicot, friends call him 'Rick', 26. He has a history of holding grudges to the point he's been in more than one altercation over it. Never physical, at least not that anyone found out about. Apparently he only recently graduated to murder." Catherine parks as she explains, popping open the car door and casting a glance at her as she climbs out.

"Well, as he's shown, he was inspired by Hegemon. It was probably their killings, their justice, that made him decide to dish out his own brand." The doors shut and Catherine joins her in the walk across the lot to where a familiar blonde stands waiting. "At first Nathan was just an accident, Richard went to confront him about what happened with all the stress from losing his job and taking the heat for what he did, they fought...Richard accidentally killed him."

"Then he decided to take it to the next level, thinking he could catch the attention of one of his idols...and he did. Do you think if Hegemon hadn't responded he wouldn't have killed Carolina?" Catherine asks, waving to the waiting agent.

"It's possible," Byleth replies, nodding in greeting. "He was....elated and angry at Hegemon's response. Wasn't happy that he wasn't the center of their attention, so he wanted to prove himself. It's more likely he would have been angrier had Hegemon not responded, and kept killing until they did...or they killed him." She shrugs.

Catherine grimaces. "He here, Galatea?"

"He didn't show up for classes today, no," the agent responds. "Not at his apartment either."

"Anything happened that might have made him set eyes on a new target?"

The agent -- Galatea -- shrugs. "None that any of the students we talked to reported. We're about to head over to the grocery store, since that seems to be his hunting ground."

"Alright," Catherine agrees. "Let's go."

\-------

Galatea, or Ingrid, as Byleth discovers when the other woman finally introduces herself, fills them in on things they found in their search of his apartment on the way there. Showing pictures of half finished instruments, and books on how to build them; a hidden stash of pictures and written details about the two victims so far.

And a picture of Richard himself. Average height, average build, brunette hair and hazel eyes. Pale. His face was handsome with a square jaw and pronounced cheekbones.

It takes her less then a minute to spot him in the store once they arrive, standing in an aisle watching a few students as they get their shopping done. It's a small store, she notes as she carefully points him out to Catherine and Ingrid, keeping an eye on him as the latter rallies their back up, with mostly kids from campus using it and a few locals from the nearby apartments.

It takes less then a minute for it all to go to hell.


	4. Andante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Edelgard sits back, fingers steepled, elbows resting against the edge of the chair arms. "Does that unsettle you?" She's curious, the subtlety of her expression shifting with the new incline of her head._
> 
> _"It scares the hell out of me," She admits, staring just shy of the other woman's eyes. "But it's also incredibly comforting. I don't have to worry about getting lost in your head, I can just focus on me."_
> 
> _Edelgard smiles again, ghosting, but lingering. "Then let me be your anchor."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH. THIS now has a playlist on [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1MoTiYPOuWg0BgDQoAxTYr?si=RuVniapYTwKLZBmnt10WIA)

"I had no choice."

_She goes back easily, time winding back to the exact second everything went wrong, people running backwards from panic to calm, objects on shelves falling back up to their places. Ingrid returning to her side and Catherine back to standing a few inches a head of her. Time springs forward again, Ingrid departing, Catherine pressing in close to her side to ask if she was armed. She turns into it easy, like two friends keeping their conversation private, nodding._

_"Let's hope it doesn't come to it," Catherine says, withdrawing and going over to the counter. Byleth wanders down another aisle, pretending to look at the candy there while keeping an eye on Richard. He looks angry, skin paler and dark circles under red rimmed eyes. Her eyes shift, flicking to the focus of his attention. A man and a woman standing by the freezer section, perusing the contents and chatting. She's not sure which is the target, pins it as maybe both, then looks away, back to the small bag of chocolate she selects to make herself look occupied._

_She moves on, looking up once to find Richard watching her and she offers him a small smile, unsteady and fleeting, a stranger greeting another. Catherine lingers behind him, back to them both as she looks over drinks, and outside Ingrid and the officers keep more people from coming in._

_He's going to notice, she thinks, muttering about cat food as she circles from her aisle down back, passing in front of the couple he's watching._

"He got spooked, like we thought he would. We didn't go into this thinking everything would go smoothly, Catherine knew it was a huge risk...and probably not the best way to handle it." She wrings her hands, twisting her fingers together until the tips prickle and turn white. 

"But you also knew he was going to kill again, so apprehending him as soon as possible took precedence." Edelgard sits across from her in the spacious office, legs crossed and hands folded across her stomach. Her suit is black today, all the way down to the tie she wears, making her look like a void against the backdrop of the burgundy walls and gray leather of her chosen seat. She sits perfectly still, head tilted very slightly to one side, her seemingly unshakable calm a dam to Byleth's rising anxiety.

"Yea," she says, wringing her hands, one leg jumping. It draws Edelgard's eye briefly, violet flicking down to the heel that taps incessantly against the carpet. "S-Sorry," she mutters, struggling to stop. "I-"

"No need to apologize," Edelgard cuts in, focus back on her face and lips upturned in a faint smile. "Do you often feel anxious?" It's slightly off topic, and exactly not the kind of thing Byleth ever wants to talk about. The lens is fully on her, but Edelgard isn't scrutinizing like others did, isn't trying to peel her layers back to understand the frightened woman underneath. Instead she's patient, waiting like a fisherman with a cast line, waiting for Byleth to peel back her own layers and bare herself to her willingly.

She's not sure which is worse.

"Yes," she admits, staring down at her feet, watching the way her leg judders. "I mean, I can't go a day without ending up in someone else's head other than my own. I start to wonder who I am after a while, you know? Like, am I a teacher? Or an Agent? Or maybe I'm someone's wife or an actual killer. It's hard to separate myself from it all."

"Your empathy," Edelgard says, sitting forward finally, forearms resting against her knees. "It's a double edged sword, as you know, you have an incredible gift that allows you to think like a killer while putting your own individuality in jeopardy. Yet, even while you question who you are, you still hold that awareness."

Byleth nods, the assurance making her feel a little steadier. "I mean, it's true, at the end of the day when I have time to unwind and center myself, I know who I am," she affirms. "But when I'm in the thick of it sometimes I get lost and I have to remind myself or I'm afraid I'll never come back."

"In those moments you have to affirm to yourself who you are," Edelgard says, splaying a gloved hand between them. Her fingers are slender, the leather framing each one perfectly. " 'I am Byleth Eisner, and it's 3:46pm, I'm in Baltimore, Maryland.' Let it become a way of grounding yourself when you have no other way of doing it."

She swallows once, unable to deny the effect the sound of her name coming off Edelgard's lips has on her. "You're the only person I've never been able to read," she says without thinking, even while she notes the Doctor's advice and holds it close to her chest. "I just look at you and I see...a person, a blank slate."

Edelgard sits back, fingers steepled, elbows resting against the edge of the chair arms. "Does that unsettle you?" She's curious, the subtlety of her expression shifting with the new incline of her head.

"It scares the hell out of me," She admits, staring just shy of the other woman's eyes. "But it's also incredibly comforting. I don't have to worry about getting lost in your head, I can just focus on me."

Edelgard smiles again, ghosting, but lingering. "Then let me be your anchor."

The offer shocks her, though Edelgard is hardly the first person to extend such a thing. Manuela had assured her she would keep her from getting lost, Catherine promised to protect her in any way she could, and now there was Edelgard, offering to hold her to the now, to the frame of her identity with her own steady silences.

"You have so many people offering you support," Edelgard continues, gesturing, and Byleth finds herself transfixed on the fluid motion of her hand, of the way her fingers curl and relax. "So many people who care about you, but so few of them are actually aware of _you_." She looks away, lips thinned in an almost smile. "I cannot proclaim to know you myself, but I can say I have a bit of an edge above the others, or is that too arrogant of me?"

"No, I-You have a different understanding of things," Byleth says, wringing her hands and shuffling in her seat. "They told me that it was better to get insight from someone who didn't know me as well as Dr. Casagranda and I guess they were right." It should be arrogant, but it isn't. Not to her, not when Edelgard was so willing to be so patient and see the full picture, not just throw guesses about what was wrong with her at her face. 

"They?" Edelgard has returned to the stillness from before, chin propped up on splayed fingers, gaze steady. "I suppose that must have something to do with the incident you have yet to finish telling me about."

She shifts again, wishing she could maintain the same stillness Edelgard did, maintain the patience of a predator watching it's prey, but she could only do that on the docks when she was fishing. Could only do it when eyes weren't on her....

Or when she was staring down the barrel of a gun, finger poised against the trigger.

"I had no choice," she whispers again, again, fixating on the coat of arms that hangs behind Edelgard's desk; A double-headed Eagle with a great axe in it's talons. She had noticed it when she first walked in, noticed the bookshelves lining the upper half of the office, the statues and the paintings. It felt more like a living room then it did an office. It's a distraction, she tells herself, to think about the office instead of what was really bothering her.

Everything was a distraction.

She breathes, fingers sliding through her hair and eyes swiveling back to the woman seated across from her. Edelgard's posture screams _'take your time'_ in the lax line of her shoulders and the quietly sympathetic look in her eyes. It's telegraphed for her, she realizes, for her comfort. And she's already latched on to it, unknowingly.

 _My anchor indeed_ , she thinks, chewing at the inside of her lip and steadying herself.

"Everything went to hell," she says, closing her eyes and putting herself back there again.

_She's halfway to Catherine when she sees Richard turn out of the corner of her eye, the rest of the color draining from his face as he whispers under his breath. She feels is panic and his desperation, feels his awareness that he's been caught and his only option is to-_

_She's in the wrong position, the couple from before having begun to move and she sees it happen before it does, pulling her gun the same time Richard has drawn his knife and grabbed the woman. "Don't!" She shouts, voice unsteady. "You're surrounded." She ignores the woman's fearful sobbing, her boyfriend's desperate assurances._

_'It's okay, the cops are here, everything will be fine.'_

_Catherine is gone from her side, and she hardly needs to look to know the woman is closing in from behind, Ingrid and a few other officers slipping in to usher out the tellers and close in from the sides. "Just put the knife down and let her go," she says, steadier now, pulling the cold center she hates to rely upon around her. "There's no way this ends well for you."_

_"I'll kill her if you don't let me walk out of here," Richard spits, and Byleth gets herself between him and the boyfriend, using her body to keep the desperate man at bay._

_"And then what?" Byleth asks, focused despite the hammer of her heart. "You're still going to prison." There's something about it all that sits wrong, that screams at her from the void in the back of her mind. He's watching the man behind her, not her._

_"She's not even the one you're after, is she?" She risks, bringing his attention to her, noting his surprise. "It's him."_

_"What?" The boyfriend chokes, and she ignores him, thankful for the officer she sees slip by out of her peripheral, his presence from behind her withdrawing. "I didn't do anything!"_

_"Yes you did," Richard snaps. "Five years ago, your drunk driving got someone killed. The family has suffered for years because of your careless actions!"_

_Oh._

_"What the fuck man! You're right, I fucked up, I paid the price for it. I admitted my guilt, served my time and stopped drinking! Not a day goes by that I don't hate myself for what I did, but I was a dumb-ass in my late teens!"_

_Byleth squeezes her eyes shut, breath hissing between her teeth._

_"If you kill her," she interjects, cutting off the argument before it starts. "It's not revenge, it's just murder. You'll be no better then him. Her family will suffer and demand justice for what you did, just like the families of those other people you took revenge on."_

_And therein lay the logic of revenge killers, refusing to realize their cycle of revenge only began a new one. It was the biggest line between Revenge and Justice._

_The biggest line between The Conductor and Hegemon._

_"I know killing her is killing an innocent," Richard says. "Let me leave, and I'll let her go."_

_"Okay," Byleth says suddenly, lifting one hand. "Okay, we'll let you walk." She gestures, exchanging a look with Catherine over Richard's shoulder. Slowly all of them move, lowering weapons and with Catherine's sharp wave clearing a path. "Now let her go, you can walk right out of here and no one will touch you."_

_A lie, of course, but Byleth gives nothing away on it and Ingrid's gesture to the officers outside could mean anything to a desperate criminal._

_Two things happen at once, Richard releases his hostage at the same time the boyfriend moves forward to retrieve her, shoving the officer trying to hold him back away. It's too much all at once, Richard's rush for the boyfriend whose pulling his panicked girlfriend behind him. The knife raises and Byleth fires, gun kicking slightly in her grip, bullet slamming home in his shoulder. He stumbles, wheels, Byleth fires again._

_Richard crumples to the ground, propped up by the freezer doors behind him, blood lazily running down them in his wake._

_"Was that your plan all along?" the boyfriend asks, shielding his girlfriend. "To shoot him?"_

_"No," Byleth grimaces, staring him down. "I just had no other choice." She doesn't say it's because the boyfriend provoked him, doesn't say that if he had stayed put this would have ended very differently, but instead she has another body at her feet._

_"You didn't even hesitate," Catherine says later, Byleth's gun in her hand. "This is the second time you've shot someone, Eisner."_

_"Both times I was protecting people and myself. I didn't pull the trigger because I wanted to, I pulled it because I didn't have a choice."_

It's how she ended up here in the first place, with two bodies at her feet and no guilt in her soul. Their deaths dragged at her in other ways, made her question her already fragile state of mind even more since she knew Catherine was right. She didn't hesitate, didn't see a need to. She knew what she had to do to protect everyone in and outside of that store still, knew what she had to do to protect that little girl out on the streets.

"And so Agent Nevrand sent you to me, officially," Edelgard sums up, barely having moved from her previous position. 

"More like Catherine was pressured into it, the higher ups told her I needed a proper psyche eval to be out on the field again. Since I technically hadn't had one since I walked away the first time....Catherine brought me back with Dr. Casagranda's unwilling blessing and, well..with your presence." Byleth pauses, fingers tapping against the backs of her hands. "Come to think of it, how do you know Dr. Casagranda?"

Edelgard hums, eyebrows raising. "We went to school and consulted on a few cases together. While we eventually did go our separate ways we still keep in touch. It was Agent Nevrand that came to me, however." 

Byleth nods once, breathing out a long sigh. "That makes sense," she mutters, sliding her hands down her face. "They think I'm unstable, that I'll snap and pull the trigger every time we go to arrest someone."

"Do you think the same?" 

"No?" Byleth says, peering at her between her fingers. "I-I'm not sure? I mean I'm not unstable in the way they think I am, I've been at more than one arrest and, yea, while I've wanted to shoot a couple more I didn't."

"But those that you did?"

"If you're asking me, 'did you regret it', the answer is no. I didn't. If I hadn't, more people would have died. There's a difference between having the blood of a criminal on your hands versus carrying the death of an innocent on your consciousness...especially when you could have prevented it." She thinks back again to that poor terrified girl, curled up in an alley and sobbing for help.

"You brought justice in the only way that was possible," Edelgard says, index finger tapping against her cheek. "Because if you had done nothing, someone would have demanded why you hadn't pulled the trigger. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't."

"Either I'm an unstable loose canon, or a coward who can't pull the trigger when it counts. This is part of the reason I walked away in the first place," she admits, pushing up to her feet and pacing a little. "I know the balance I have to keep, don't shoot unless absolutely necessary, but I..."

"You have no remorse when you do, and that troubles people," Edelgard supplies, uncrossing and recrossing her legs.

"I'm not some kind of psychopath," Byleth says, unintentionally defensive. "I'm just not afraid to act if it means saving a life." There's something in Edelgard's eyes when she turns back to look at her, intrigued, excited even. A kindling fascination that's gone in a blink.

"You just have a very strong sense of justice that's not hampered by societies misgivings. You wouldn't kill an innocent or a criminal who wasn't an immediate danger to someone."

"Exactly," Byleth agrees, crossing back to her chair. "I'd never forgive myself if I did that, the thought that people think I might makes me sick. And it's not like I got any joy out of it, I don't _like_ having to pull the trigger, But if no one else will..." She shrugs once, hunkering lower into the collar of her shirt and subsequently her chair. The leather creaks in protest.

"And there's nothing wrong with that," Edelgard comments, still as ever. "I believe that your friends at the FBI are overreacting, I'll still do an eval on you so they can sleep better at night, but I very strongly believe you're not that kind of unstable."

"Thanks...Dr. Hresvelg, it's nice to have someone really in my corner."

Another smile slides across the other woman's face. "I'll always be in your corner, Byleth."

\--------

Class starts with a rumble of hushed whispers, students chatting among themselves while Byleth sets up for the morning. Papers spread across her desk, lesson plan churning in the back of her mind. All eyes are on her when she looks up, the conversation dying out as quickly as it had begun. It's not unusual, but the energy in the room is.  
Something happened overnight and whatever it was she was the center of it.

She doesn't ask, knowing it would be brought to her attention sooner rather than later. Instead she just begins class, getting only a half hour into a two hour lecture before Catherine barges in, printed papers in hand and fury lining the edges of her face.

"Class dismissed!" She bellows, turning to the room at large. "Everyone out!"

"Can't this wait until later?" Byleth asks, baffled. "My class-"

"Kronya wrote a rather scathing article about you," Catherine spits, turning on her. "So no, it can't wait until later."

"W-what? Wh-why?" She's off kilter now, her routine suddenly interrupted for a reason she finds rather silly, left watching as her students filter out. "Please pay attention to your phones, I'll send out a notification regarding the continuation of this lecture later!" She calls over Catherine's shoulder, annoyance settling in the pit of her stomach.

"She's decided to make it seem like you're gung-ho about killing criminals, drawing a comparison between you and Hegemon," Catherine continues as soon as the students all leave, waving the paper in her face. 

"And you saw fit to interrupt my lecture for this?" She asks, confused. "Tabloid bloggers like her always write stuff like that. It's not true, and you know it. Dr. Hresvelg did a psych eval and signed off on it, you _have_ the proof you need."

" _I_ have it, but the general populace who reads this crap doesn't! She even had details of the first person you killed, from an eyewitness."

And now she gets why Catherine is so worried, why her fear and her anger had driven her here to end her class early. Her blood runs cold, brows knitting together as she focuses finally on the crumpled papers in the older woman's hand. "The only witness to it was the little girl I saved."

"I don't know how Kronya found her, but she did. It's probably the only positive part of this shit show of an article, she ended the interview expressing her desire to see you again." Catherine's expression pinches.

"It's bait."

Byleth jumps and Catherine turns, both of them fixating on Manuela as she strides into the classroom, about as irritated as Catherine but much more controlled. "That's all it is, bait. Kronya is trying to wheedle you into a response by dragging your past out for everyone to see."

"I'm not going to respond," Byleth replies, shuffling papers on her desk. "Sure, my past isn't exactly public knowledge, but I'm not going to let one article get me all riled up about it. Especially one on a tabloid website. Kronya has an image of me in her head and nothing I do or say is going to change it." If she cared about everyone's opinion of her all the time, she'd really lose her mind. So she had to take the hits where they came.

Even if this one was a rather big one. "They have no proof other than an eyewitness, it's easy to get people to lie if you pay them enough and we all know what kind of person Kronya is." 

"Still, I don't...like this," Manuela says, leaning her hip against the edge of the desk. "I don't know what kind of motive she has, other than trying to make you out to be something you're not."

"She's putting the public eye on me and the rest of the FBI, hoping to..root out some dark secret about me that doesn't exist. Like I told Dr. Hresvelg, I'm not some psychopath, I'm just doing what I need to do to help people." At the expense of her sense of self, able to feel more pieces of her break off each time she climbs into the head of another killer.

"None of us think that," Catherine says, her anger abating, her expression smooths, eyes hardening.

"You're here for more then one reason, aren't you?" Byleth asks, looking up at her. "You just got wind of the article, read it, and stormed in here sooner because you were worried about me."

Catherine looks away, flush burning across tan skin. "I just didn't want you to get blindsided by one of the trainees."

"Well, at least now I know what the hot topic of conversation was about this morning," she replies, resting her face in her hands. "What..." she sighs, rubbing the bridge of her nose and her temples in an attempt to stave off her newest headache. "What was it originally?" 

"We found evidence that hinted at Richard having another victim, apparently whatever instrument he planned to create this time required more than one person," Catherine says, glancing at Manuela still beside her. 

"Okay," Byleth says, hesitant. "So there is some place other than his dorm that he keeps people to kill them and carve them up. Like with Nathan. With Carolina he had the time to do it there at the house, though I'm assuming it was somewhere outside?"

"Right. Out in the woods a little ways was where he did all his carving, we found a lot of blood and the missing organs buried nearby," Catherine affirms. "So wherever Nathan was held is wherever this other victim might be."

"If they're still alive," Byleth says. "There's a very real chance he started his project, realized he couldn't complete it, and went after someone else. He was angry, stressed even. A botched project that forced him to move sooner then he expected and it got him caught," she finishes, drumming her fingers against the table. 

"I was about to go see what else the lab had on him," Catherine says, gesturing. "Since you don't have a class to teach anymore, let's go."

Byleth grimaces, it's not her idea of a good alternative.

\-----

They find out he has family in the area, and an hour later she finds herself on the doorstep of the family home, side eyeing the car sitting in the driveway. It's covered in a thin sheet of pollen she notes, even the windshield. "Car hasn't gone anywhere in a while," she says, Catherine bothering to spare a glance in it's direction at her comment.

"So they're homebodies," Catherine says, banging on the door again. "Mr. And Mrs. Epicot? FBI! We'd like to ask you a few questions about your son!" They're greeted by nothing but silence, no shuffling footsteps or whispered conversation, just a reverberating echo. "Mr. And Mrs. Epicot?!" Catherine calls again, glancing side long at her. She tries the door, and it swings in with little resistance.

Catherine goes for her gun. "We're coming in!"

The first thing that hits her is the smell, something rancid and rotten, undercut by the sickly sweetness of blood. She recoils at the same time Catherine does, lifting a hand up to cover her nose and her mouth. The floor groans underneath their steps, a thin sheet of dust covering every surface she can see. They creep through the living room, the kitchen, a pile of dishes sitting haphazardly in the sink, flies buzzing incessantly around them.

"Upstairs or cellar," Catherine asks once they reach the hallway.

"Up," Byleth says, moving by her and creeping up the steps as best she can, wood protesting every step she takes. Catherine follows in her wake, phone pressed to her ear and words low as she calls in for backup. It doesn't take a genius to know what they were about to find.

Didn't take a genius to figure out what happened here. "Do you think he killed them?" Catherine asks, pushing each door open with the barrel of her gun. Bedroom, Bathroom, an untouched guest room. The smell is stronger up here, she notes, bile sitting in the back of her throat the further they move down the hall.

They find Richard's parents in the master bedroom, laying peacefully in their bed, half decayed. Byleth whines as the putrid scent hits her in full, sticking in her throat and her nose no matter what she does, flies in an uproar at their mere presence in the doorway. "Jesus," Catherine hisses, not daring to take a step closer. "They've been here awhile."

"From the looks of it, yea," she rasps, walking off down the hallway. "But we won't know for sure how long, or what happened, until the rest of the team gets here." She goes back down, following the same path they took until she gets outside, sucking in a lungful of fresh air, coughing once, twice then swallowing hard, scowling at the taste in the back of her throat.

There's a few people hanging around at the base of the driveway, neighbors wondering why there's a strange SUV there. Nobody gets the chance to approach her before she's back inside, shutting the door behind her. 

The place is swarming with FBI and Police twenty minute later, Catherine filling them in on what they found and what they hadn't. Lysithea and her team depart upstairs to deal with the bodies while her, Catherine, Ingrid and a few others go down into the basement. It looks like a horror movie set, she thinks the second the lights burn on, old florescents humming incessantly. There's a blood stain on the floor, seeped deep into the concrete under their feet, old and new all at once.

Tools scatter a bench sitting against the back wall, some clean, some bloody, a blue print pinned to the wall above it. "So he was an artist too," Catherine murmurs, peering at the design. "Apparently he was trying to make an entire instrumental section with this one. Needed more than one set of bones...."

"This blood is pretty fresh," Ingrid says, bending down beside it. "We might be too late..." The other officers with them have fanned out, and she can hear them as they search other parts of the basement, radio chatter crackling through the stale air.

"Hey," one of the officers calls. "I found someone!" There's a flurry of activity, boots scraping and fabric shifting. The three of them joining the other officers as they check the pulse of the young man laying unconscious on the floor. "He's alive," the same officer says and Ingrid disappears, steps thudding up the stairs as she goes to get the medical team.

Byleth gets out of the way, the flurry of high emotion beginning to climb it's way into her skull. The fear the young man must have felt being locked in a basement aware he was going to die. She tries not to put herself in his shoes, fingers clenching against the tremble that begins in her hands.

She goes outside, winding her way back to the car where she sits, door hanging open, head pressed into her hands as she whispers to herself, reminds herself who she is and where she is.

"Agent Eisner? Is that you?"

She freezes, breath catching in her throat.


	5. Subito

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"It's true, the entire string section itself is possibly the most crucial part of an Orchestra. But the answers vary depending on who you ask," Edelgard says, flipping through the pages of a book while Byleth paces around the upper walk of the office, looking over the shelves there. There's even more paintings and artifacts hanging on the walls or collected on the shelves, and she finds herself leaning in to look at a particularly intricate set of bookends._
> 
> _Eagles, she thinks. Black Eagles. And they're beautiful, every feather carved from what she can only guess is marble, talons and beak looking as sharp as she assumes they would be on a real one._
> 
> _"The strings typically carry the melody and the harmony, lead mainly by the violins-are you even listening? Or am I talking to myself?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi It's been a month and change but I'm here with an update.
> 
> I feel like I missed something somewhere, and If I did I'll absolutely figure it out after I've posted this so...here we are.

"Agent Eisner?"

She knows who she'll see when she looks up, knows the face, the frame and the history that voice belongs to. She doesn't want to look up, doesn't want to accept the inevitable repercussions that will come with acknowledging the woman whose shoes she can see just out of the edge of her vision. She wants to disappear, twitching as she finally remembers she needs to breath.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She hears the ambulance arrive, sirens cutting off as tires crunch over acorns and small branches. She hears the doors, voices, and the clatter of a stretcher.

There's no avoiding it, no getting away from her situation when she's quite literally been cornered into it. _No, sorry,_ she tells herself to say. _You have the wrong person._ The lie sticks in her throat hard enough she thinks it might choke her, she can't pretend she didn't hear her when she clearly had.

She can't just sit properly in the car and shut the door, which is what she should have done right from the start. She's too nice, and she knows it, lips thinning into a nervous smile as she finally looks up. She remembers the girl from before, so small, so emaciated and pale, covered and dirt and bruises and scars Byleth didn't need to ask to know where came from. The woman who faces her now is someone completely different.

Healthy.

"It is you!"

"Dorothea," she replies in greeting, lips twitching slightly in an attempt to make her smile more welcoming. "You really shouldn't be here..." There's a dozen questions that roll through her mind all at once; _How did you find me? Why are you here? How have you been? How did Kronya find out about you? Why the interview?_ She doesn't ask any of them, burying them all underneath the quiet crawl of paranoia.

"I know," Dorothea replies, hugging herself. "I just, I've been looking for you ever since you left San Fransisco. You did so much for me and then disappeared and I never got the chance to thank you."

It's more than that. Byleth knows it's more than that.

It's always more than that.

She smiles again, still just as nervous, struggling to keep it from being downright uncomfortable. "I was just doing my job."

"You went above and beyond your job, most cops wouldn't have even bothered to cast me a second glance. But you, you made sure I got everything I needed." Dorothea's smile is vibrant, contagious almost and Byleth finds her own smoothing out into something more real.

"I'm glad to see that you're doing so much better," she says, winding off the topic a little. "But, you honestly didn't just come to Baltimore to find me, did you?"

The other woman laughs, and Byleth casts a look around.

"Actually, no save that. I think you really should go before someone catches you here." She was amazed they hadn't yet, thinking that the car door had probably blocked the sight of Dorothea just enough any officer or agent not focusing wouldn't have otherwise noticed. 

"You're right," Dorothea agrees. "Maybe we'll run into one another again sometime, I'll be in Baltimore for a while. We can catch up."

It's a mistake, a huge, looming mistake that hangs like a guillotine primed to fall. "Yea," she agrees anyway. "Sure."

Dorothea disappears as quickly as she had shown up, leaving Byleth alone with her thoughts. Alone with all the memories now rattling hollowly around the confines of her skull.

She focuses instead on the distant murmur of conversation and the chatter of radios, on the sound of the birds and the hiss of the breeze through the leaves.

She breathes. In. Out. Rests her face in her hands. She knew it was only a matter of time before her past caught up to her, knew that she could only run from it for so long before someone dug it up and spread it all over. She just hadn't expected it all at once.

Hadn't ever expected to see Dorothea again.

"Hey you alright? You look like you saw a ghost."

It's Catherine whose there when she looks up again, arms crossed, sweat sticking loose hair to the sides of her face and neck. She looks tired, looks worried, eyebrows knit together and mouth a thin line. 

"Yea," she lies, staring out at the gathering of onlookers slowly collecting. "I'm fine. Just tired. Sorry I didn't stay to help out."

Catherine waves it off, leaning her forearm against the top of the door. "No worries, there was enough officers in there to take care of everything. The victim we found is headed to the hospital, bodies are headed to the lab. Though we're all pretty sure what they're going to find."

"He wanted to save them," She says absently, focus flicking back to Catherine. The other woman meets her eyes, and she holds the stare for as long as she's capable of. "They were going to be his final act, his final instrument...because they were the most important to him, even if they had betrayed him."

Something in Catherine's expression changes, flickers into something subtle and shadowed. She's not sure what the other woman sees, but it's clear Catherine's not sure how she feels about it. Byleth looks away, stares hard at her knees. 

"Why save them?" Catherine asks after a moment, fingers tapping against the door. "Bodies decompose, he wouldn't have been able to use them like he did his other victims. Unless he was planning to use their bones."

"They would have been violins, the first and second respectively. The leads of the entire orchestra, second only to him as the Conductor. I'm willing to bet there will be organs missing from them, organs that he had harvested already to use as pieces of the violins." She shrugs, jerky and abortive. 

Catherine, for her part, still looks confused. Nodding along with the explanation like she's pretending she understands so she doesn't trouble Byleth further with asking for something more in depth. It makes her realize that only Dr. Hresvelg would really understand where she was coming from with the entire metaphor. The other woman appreciated the arts more than any of them here.

It made her feel awkward, being around such a high class woman. But the good Doctor treated her just like any other person despite the differences in their lifestyles. She was an odd one of the Baltimore Elite, but Byleth wasn't about to complain.

\------

"It's true, the entire string section itself is possibly the most crucial part of an Orchestra. But the answers vary depending on who you ask," Edelgard says, flipping through the pages of a book while Byleth paces around the upper walk of the office, looking over the shelves there. There's even more paintings and artifacts hanging on the walls or collected on the shelves, and she finds herself leaning in to look at a particularly intricate set of bookends.

Eagles, she thinks. Black Eagles. And they're beautiful, every feather carved from what she can only guess is marble, talons and beak looking as sharp as she assumes they would be on a real one.

"The strings typically carry the melody and the harmony, lead mainly by the violins-are you even listening? Or am I talking to myself?" 

"No, I'm listening," Byleth replies, leaning against the railing to look down at the other woman. She looks amused, at least, lips quirked in a faint smirk and one eyebrow raised.

"You know so much, I just read stuff in a book."

The other woman laughs, a low, rich sound that makes Byleth's skin tingle.

"I used to play the violin," she says finally, putting the book down on her desk. "So it was quite literally my life for many years while I was still in school. Then it became a hobby, now I confess I haven't had the chance to play in many years." And she sounds disappointed at that, eyes downcast and expression some semblance of sorrowful.

A hobby missed, swept aside in the chaos of the Doctor's likely very active lifestyle. Patients, consulting on cases and God only knew what else.

"Would you play again? If you had the time, I mean," she asks, shifting slightly, feet thunking hollowly against the wooden railing supports. "You sounded like you missed it."

"I do miss it, and had I the time? I would, yes." Edelgard replies, eyes flicking up again. She meets and holds Byleth's stare, it's easy. It's so easy with her, still finding nothing more than a blank slate, a shallow pool with a deep end drop off she hasn't waded in deep enough to notice.

Byleth wonders what else is there, wants to chase the flickering shadows she's seen pass behind the woman's eyes before. But she also doesn't want to know, doesn't want to feel once again like a butterfly trapped on a pin-board, or cornered prey staring down a hungry predator.

There's something off about Dr. Hresvelg, something that tells her ignoring it would be dangerous.

"Maybe you could make the time?" Byleth suggests, rocking back on her heels, thinking that she should finally climb back down to the ground floor. She doesn't, not yet.

"I could, but to take more time for myself takes time from my patients, and I simply can't do that." She shrugs slightly as she speaks, a half gesture that doesn't quite ever get finished. Byleth wonders what sort of schedule the other woman keeps, wonders just how many people she sees in a day for these hour long sessions.

Sessions that, fortunately for her, the FBI had decided to foot. 

"Yea. I get that," Byleth says, starting up another circuit of the walkway. She fully understood, since taking time off meant taking time away from her students, or from her cases. She couldn't do either without feeling guilty, and she wonders if Edelgard feels the same. "So, uh, about my eval?" She asks, hesitating slightly in front of the ladder back down to the office floor.

"Don't worry," Edelgard says, attention settled on a folder Byleth hadn't seen her pick up. "You're perfectly sane," she adds, waving the folder slightly. "Nothing wrong with you at all." She smiles, tilting her head slightly to one side. "But we both knew that already, didn't we."

And now, Byleth thinks, the FBI would to.

"You're just incredibly gifted, as we've already discussed," Edelgard comments, drumming her fingers against her desk, folder tossed atop a collection of sketches Byleth catches a brief glimpse of. All beautifully done for something half finished.

She adds it to her collection of gathered knowledge about the other woman.

"I'm interested to know about this woman you mentioned," Edelgard's tone shifts, something a little more serious to gauge the shift in topic. And despite having mentioned it, Byleth almost wants to backtrack. They had touched on it so briefly before, but with Dorothea actively in Baltimore...

"Dorothea," Byleth offers, sitting down across from Edelgard in their usual chairs, their usual positions. "She uh...did you read the interview?"

"I did," Edelgard affirms, tongue pressing to the back of her teeth. "Rather tasteless of Kronya, that. She could have at least gone through the effort to not use names, but of course, that's how she is."

So, she knew. She knew without her having to explain everything again, since the interview had left very little to the imagination. She had read it despite herself, tablet set on the dinner table, eyes narrowed and fingers wrapped around a cold glass of whiskey, a cat curled in her lap.

"Very," Byleth agrees, patting the arms of her chair. "Anyway, the woman in the interview showed up at The Conductor's house, I don't know how she found me...but she did."  
Edelgard's eyebrow raises, but nothing else about her expression changes. Suspicion portrayed so subtly Byleth would have missed it had she not been so focused on the other's face. 

"How many years has it been?" Edelgard asks, crossing her legs and threading her fingers together around one knee. "And what do you think made her decide she had to find you now?"

"Fourteen," Byleth replies, rubbing her hands down her face. "I don't know, I mean she said she'd been looking for me since I left...but that's a little-" she trails off, lips pressing together, shoulders drawing up to her ears. She's not sure how she feels still, or what she believes.

"Farfetched?" Edelgard supplies. "While I understand she may have wanted to find and thank you, I highly doubt she's been looking that long." She shifts, a minuscule moment that's more of a roll of muscle then it is a full bodied movement. Byleth envies how at home she looks in her own body.

"I saw her one more time before I left, she thanked me then too. Gave me a drawing she did...I hung it on my fridge." Though she'd lost it in one move or another, and hadn't ever been able to find it again. When she hadn't found it by the time she reached Virginia, she told herself it was the universe's way of telling her to let go.

The Doctor is smiling, something quiet and easy and ghosting. "You felt as though you wanted to take care of her, didn't you?"

Hammer, meet nail. Clang!

Byleth averts her eyes, shuffles, frowns. Teeth worrying at the inside of her lip. "At the time," she admits, wringing her hands. "At the time I wanted to, yea. She had no one else, mom was dead, Dad threw her out. But I knew I couldn't, somebody like me? I wouldn't have been good for her."

She shrugs, leans her elbows on her knees, fiddles with her sleeve. "I know how much of a shitshow the foster system can be, so I did do my best to make sure she got placed with a good family. I think in the end they even decided to adopt her, so..." She shrugs again, twitching and abortive.

"You did your part in making sure she was taken care of before you left," Edelgard fills in, turning her head slightly to regard her out of the corner of one eye. "What made you decide to leave, if you don't mind my asking?"

It's a hard question to answer, to pin down exactly why it was she wanted to leave California and make the cross country trek she did; Texas, Louisiana, Florida and finally Virginia. In part she knew it was because she wanted to chase Hegemon, but she also thinks that maybe she was running. "It was a lot of things," she says, going for complete honesty. "I had been getting steadily more overwhelmed as the cases went, some weren't that bad, others I took weeks to disengage from. I didn't have the support I did now back then. So I was left on my own to crawl out of the killer's minds without taking something of them with me."

Edelgard listens patiently, and a sick feeling wells in the back of Byleth's throat as the memories she left behind come crawling back. Here she was in the second session with this woman, willingly giving away even more that she'd done so well to keep under lock and key. It had taken Manuela a year that Edelgard had done in two months.

Though, she tells herself, licking her lips and fidgeting more, perhaps telling Manuela had made opening up to someone else easier. She'd have clammed up all the same if Edelgard was the first person she'd spoken too about her past, even if the other woman could read her like an open book.

"So when Dorothea's case fell into my lap, well....I wasn't in the best states. I...was unstable, I knew I was, but I still did it. Sometimes I look back on it and think I shouldn't have-" the words catch in her throat and in her lungs, and she rests her face in her hands.

"But you believe if you hadn't, that man would have gotten away. Maybe even to the point he would still be preying on people?"

She nods, numb. "That was the last case I did before I turned in my badge and gun and retired. Besides at that point, I figured if I didn't I'd have been let go anyway." She laughs a little at that, something just this side of almost hysterical. "Then I left California and just....drifted until I found my way to where I am now."

It's not the whole story, and from the way Edelgard looks at her the Doctor knows it isn't either. Anyone with half a brain could tell she had been to all the states Hegemon had been most active in. That her 'drifting' had really been her wading in the wake of this shadow she'd been chasing since that day she first saw a Hegemon kill.

It had become an obsession, this killer. This person. Her desire to know always threatened to consume her each time she was on one of Hegemon's scenes. Each time she crawled into their head. Some might tell her it was dangerous to allow herself to get so close.

In reality it was the thing that kept her sane.

"And what about Hegemon? How do they figure into all this?" Edelgard asks, and she's returned to the first time the Doctor ever asked for her opinion, asked if she had time to talk and the excuse Byleth gave.

There's no room for them now, so all she can do is answer.

"Hegemon brought my family justice. Killed a man that almost killed my mother, then walked because the police didn't have enough evidence. I saw the scene with my own eyes....and I was...captivated, appalled....It was cathartic and horrifying." She remembers it clear as day, how his midsection had been carved open like a pig to slaughter, heart shoved in his mouth and limbs spread out and twisted like a fallen angel.

Fitting, for a priest.

"I sat there in their mind and...I knew I had to find them." She meets Edelgard's eyes again, and the look she sees there seems to mirror the one she thinks she wears. 

"You may be closer then you think," the Doctor says. "You were at their most recent scene, instead of following in their footsteps."

"Yes," Byleth agrees, sick excitement coiling in the pit of her stomach. "I'm going to catch them. I'm going to arrest them and put them in jail, sure, but first I'm going to thank them for killing that bastard so I didn't have to." 

Edelgard's smile doesn't reach her eyes.

\--------

It's late by the time she returns home for the day, opening the door to a flurry of very hungry, and loudly complaining about it, cats. Their chorus of meows fill the various nooks and crannies of her home, adding life to the encroaching darkness night brings. 

"Okay, okay," she mutters as she steps inside, keeping the more curious of the cats from getting outside with her foot. "No you can't go out I already told you this, there's coyote's out there. It's too dangerous for you." The cats look at her, uncaring of her warning and she frowns at them, shutting the door.

She sheds her coat, hanging it over the back of a chair in the kitchen as she sets about refilling water bowls and navigating around the sea of furry bodies. She pauses to imagine Edelgard in her quaint little house, turning slightly to the ghosting image of the other woman in the living room, lips pursed and hands folded behind her back.

"She'd have cat hair all over her suit, I don't think she'd like it much. Dr. Hresvelg is far too meticulous to be happy among a dozen cats," she says to herself, dismissing both the ghost and her thoughts with it. She failed to see Edelgard as a pet person, but then again, there was still too much she didn't know.

Maybe she liked cats.

She spends the next few minutes speculating about Edelgard and what animal she might have while she fills food bowls with the stuff she had made earlier that day stored in the fridge. "I'll have to make more this weekend," she comments, bending down to put the bowls down and get out of the way as the cats descend on it.

"You'd think I never fed you," she grouses, unable to keep the smile off her face. She retreats from the kitchen, showers, deals with her laundry then returns to clean up after her cats and eat dinner. The cats have all found their different places to settle, some on the floor, on the couch, one on the island counter that watches her intently while she cooks. 

She disturbs another when she goes to sit down, amber eyes slitted open and tail swishing. "Come on," Byleth mutters, perching on the edge of the chair. "You have to share, get over it." She deals with the paws pressed against her back while she eats, thankful that none of the other's decide they want a share of her food too.

Her dreams are unsettling and silent, darkness sliding by like a beast lurking underwater. A calm before the storm. Voices growing closer in a fog, warning, taunting.

The shadow lurks, great claws reaching, reaching.

_Come to me._

\----

She makes it to class the next morning as her students are filing in, her annoyance at being late only amplifying as she weaves through them to get to her desk, muttering quite greetings in reply to their own. She's getting ready as they're sitting down and pulling out their notebooks and their computers, her own briefcase sitting open on her table as she spreads out her files and her books.

"Everyone did the assigned reading, yes?" She asks as she organizes her papers, pausing at the sight of a different colored peeking out at the bottom of the pile. 

"We have a new classmate?" someone asks as she fishes out the note and looks at it, frowning. No one bothered to tell her this, and she immediately assumes it was a last second addition.

She looks up, scanning the room until her eyes fall on a familiar face and it takes everything she has not to react, keeping herself perfectly neutral. A Professor seeing a new student for the first time, polite, interested, but nothing more than a stranger.

"Would you please introduce yourself?" She asks, attention skittering away to the wall. It gives her the air of attentiveness without having to focus, more interested in quelling the panic once again welling and threatening to take hold. _Why this, why here, why now?_

The woman stands, smile something Byleth catches out of the corner of her eyes. Cheering and captivating. "I'm Dorothea Arnault," she says, folding her hands in front of her.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Byleth numbly listens as the rest of her class greets her, some offering to share their notes to help her catch up.

She loses track of the rest of class, too lost in the torrent of _why are you here?_

\-----

"Dorothea joined my class." Her visit is unscheduled and she knows it, her fear of taking away from another patient becoming something very real from the startled look Edelgard wears as she comes out of her office to the sight of her in her waiting room.

Frazzled, confused. Desperate.

"I'm sorry you must have people you're waiting for but I had to...you're the only one who knows aside from Manuela and she's busy with her own classes at the university. I don't know what to do-"

Edelgard holds a hand up and Byleth goes silent. Her gloves are white today, pristine. Her suit is a pale gold, and her dress shirt an inky black that offsets the rest of the outfit nicely. "In this situation you must treat her like you do any of your other students," she says, crossing the space to her. "As a professional relationship."

"You don't find it odd?" Byleth stutters, waving her hands slightly. "That this all happens and now I come in to work to find her in my class? A last minute addition?"

"I never said it wasn't odd, Byleth," Edelgard assures, voice low and soothing. "In fact it's incredibly odd, suspicious even, but you can't go running head long in looking for an ulterior motive. She may have had innocent intentions and they ended up coming off....the exact opposite."

She inhales, runs her fingers through her hair and sighs, a great heaving thing that forces the stress out of her body. "I always see the worst in things," she says after a moment, laughing. 

Edelgard shifts, resting her hands against her shoulders. They're heavy, warm, her thumbs moving slightly against the fabric of her coat in a motion she finds as soothing as the low drawl of her voice. "And most of the time, that keeps you alive. Never stop preparing for the worst, but maybe this time try to expect something else. Until she proves otherwise, she's just a student wanting to learn from a hero from her past."

"I'm no hero," Byleth mutters, looking down at Edelgard's shoes. 

"To her, you are."


	6. Adagietto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Her phone shrills, the sound rattling her skull and the teeth she grinds unconsciously, eyes snapping open and breath sawing in her lungs. She fumbles, numb fingers nearly knocking her phone clean off her nightstand, leaving her grabbing at it at the last possible second._
> 
> _"Hello?" she rasps, squinting into the glaring light of the digital clock._
> 
> _4:30am._
> 
> _This wasn't a social call._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We unwind, we complicate.
> 
> I wrote this entire chapter to 'Murky' by Saint Mesa

Her phone shrills, the sound rattling her skull and the teeth she grinds unconsciously, eyes snapping open and breath sawing in her lungs. She fumbles, numb fingers nearly knocking her phone clean off her nightstand, leaving her grabbing at it at the last possible second.

"Hello?" she rasps, squinting into the glaring light of the digital clock.

_4:30am._

This wasn't a social call.

" _I need you in Baltimore_ ," Catherine says on the other end, gruff, clearly barely awake herself. " _We've got a new body_."

"So much for our time off," Byleth mumbles, stretching. "We got, what, a week?"

" _About that,_ " Catherine replies, and she hears her shuffling around in the background, brush snapping under her feet. There's the sound of other officers talking, Lysithea's carrying over the rest as she calls for a camera. " _I think this might be another Hegemon kill. Looks grand enough, though it also might be too grand. It's kind of..a thing_."

It takes her a few extra seconds to drag herself out of bed, hesitating slightly at the idea of seeing another of Hegemon's kills. 

_'You might be closer than you think'_

"Well, I guess I'll see when i get there," she says, looking down at the cats all sleeping at the foot of her bed. "That's why I had so much trouble getting up," she mutters at the sight of them, shaking her head.

" _What was that?_ " 

"Nothing," she says, clearing her throat. "Thinking aloud, I'll be there as soon as I can." She hangs up before Catherine can ask any further questions, putting her phone back on the nightstand. She gets ready a little out of her usual order, no time for coffee or breakfast, or really a morning shower. Instead she dresses, collects what she needs, stops long enough to feed her cats.

Then she's out the door.

The drive is uneventful, hands on the wheel and focus on the darkness still hanging over the road and the canopy of trees. By the time she pulls up to the spot Catherine texted her, the sky has given way to streaks of sunrise, dyeing everything a shade of orange and gray. Catherine herself waits a little off to one side, leaning against the side of her car.

"Hey," she says as Byleth steps out of her own, tucking herself in to her coat. "Sorry to call you out so early."

"It's fine," Byleth replies, shutting the door and approaching her. "We've had earlier mornings and later nights."

"True enough," Catherine grouses. "My wife hates it when I do, I'm either coming home as she's getting up or leaving as she's going to bed. I think she secretly enjoys having the bed to herself sometimes, but she misses me if it happens too much. Unless she's off on assignment, then I never see her."

Byleth huffs a laugh, easing her way along the forest trail Catherine walks. "My cats get mad when I wake them up by coming or going too early." 

"Cats can be as bad as people, but at least they don't talk beyond meowing at you. Shamir's never said that much unless she has to, but man when she lectures me for something..." she trails off, laughing. "Don't...tell her I said any of this she'd give me one of those long suffering glares of hers and shake her head."

"I won't say a thing," Byleth promises, waving a hand. It wasn't like she went out of her way to speak to the other woman when she did come through for one reason or another.

Most of the time she was pretty sure Shamir didn't even notice her, and she was fine with that.

The other woman looked difficult to approach, let alone hold a conversation with.

"She's not a bad person," Catherine says, as if aware of what she's thinking. "She's just very, very introverted." She sighs, and the slight shift of her expression tells Byleth all she needs to know.

Shamir was probably out on assignment, and Catherine was missing her.

"Oh, here we are." 

Byleth glances up as they reach a clearing in the woods, her eyes taking a moment to register what sits in the middle of it. Early morning sun dances across the surface of what looked like an elaborate ice sculpture, already beginning to melt. "Is that-" A body is frozen in the center, expression one of horror.

"Ice? Yes. It is," Lysithea comments as they get closer. "The logistics are still a mystery, but we were hoping to get this out of here before it melts completely."

"It's, uh...." Byleth trails off, blinking. It's absolutely not Hegemon's style, too flashy, too...much.

"Elaborate? Superfluous? Mind numbingly stupid?" 

Her eyes flick to Linhardt nearby, looking as tired as he always did, eyebrow raised and case of tools in hand. "All of the above?"

"...All...All of the above," she parrots, looking back at the sculpture. She sees the frustration, but also the dedication, sees how much time must have been sunk into the sculpting of the ice itself. "Whoever did this did not like the victim," she says after a moment.

"What do you mean?" Catherine asks, waving people away to give her room. 

"There's a lot aggression here, like the killer was frustrated with the victim," she says, eyes closing. She breathes in, out, letting herself slip back, slip by. _Tick tick tick-_

_Three moments backwards across the clock-face. Tick tick tock- She's back, eyes opened, standing right before the block of ice and the victim contained. There's still work to be done, but just a little, a few finishing touches on the sculpture, it took hours to get it here, but the people she asked for help had no idea what she was moving. She had covered it, and the sheet she used is now folded neatly and tucked away._

_No one had asked her 'why here in the middle of the woods' she was eccentric as it was, so things like this were normal. She works, hammer and chisel in hand, chipping away the last bits of ice needed to complete her project._

_'I'll show you, I'll show you why I'm the best sculptor,' she mutters, hammer clinking sharply against the chisel vibrating in her hand. 'No one insults my work and gets away with it.'_

_Rage, yet determination to turn this scum of a person into a true work of art. In her rage she had made a mistake, but in her clarity she had made something beautiful and horrifying unlike any other ice sculpture before._

Inhale, blink. She's moved a few inches forward, standing just shy of the side of the statute, able to feel the chill it radiates. "They didn't mean for the victim to die, but when they did the killer decided to make them into a work of art."

"So, how did the victim die?" Catherine asks from a few feet behind her, boots crunching over the dirt. 

"That's...a question for Lysithea and her team," Byleth replies, staring at the body frozen in the ice. "But those spots on the victim..probably might have something to do with it."

Fire? Ice? Maybe even frostbite? She couldn't be sure.

"What I am sure of is, it's not Hegemon, you were right this is too flashy for them. To slipshod." She turns, shrugging, staring slightly off to one side. "It was an unintentional kill."

"Do you think they'll kill again?" Catherine asks, focus on the block of ice in front of them, lips pulled into a frown. "Or was this just their way of making the best of a bad situation."

"It's hard to say," Byleth replies. "Sometimes accidents are just that, accidents and the killer tries to move on with their life while dealing with the trauma. But...normally people who kill someone by accident don't make something out of it like this. Only time will tell what direction our killer will take."

It's odd to be in this kind of limbo, stuck between wanting to believe it was a one time thing, but knowing deep down it wasn't going to be. Knowing that there was a great chance anyone that offended the killer would end up in an ice block.

All they could do was catch them before it happened. 

"So I guess we should start looking into events and places with ice sculptures and the people who do them for a living." Catherine heaves a sigh as she finishes, running her hand through her hair. "Shit this is going to be fun."

"We've found needles in haystacks before," Byleth assures, shoulders raising in an abortive shrug. "This won't be any different." Especially on the off chance they continued to kill. She could only hope they caught up before the next body encased in ice dropped.

In a more public space.

"On the off chance they do continue to kill," she says, choosing to give her thought voice. "They might get more public, leaving things like this in places people can see. To show off how great of an artist they are. I hope it doesn't end up being the case, but..."

"It's better you tell me these things ahead of time. I can give the team incentive to work faster," Catherine replies, lopsided grin settled on her lips. "Get outta here, Eisner, you have class today yea?"

She looks at her watch. _6:00am._

"I do," she replies, looking up. "I'll be stopping at one of the local cafes for breakfast, I guess."

"See you later," Catherine says as Byleth walks away, turning back to the scene and shouting for the officers to return. Byleth passes Lysithea and the others as they come filing back, eyes focused on the path ahead of her.

A shadow looms among the trees, flickering and twisting just out of the corner of her eye, gone each time she turns to try and focus on it. The woods are silent save the distant sound of voices and radio chatter. No birds, no insects, not even the rustle of leaves.

She moves faster, hands in her pockets and face tucked in the collar of her coat. It was just the light playing tricks on her, nothing more.

_Nothing more._

\----------

She arrives well before her students do, coffee in hand and a flurry of thoughts chasing tails around in her head. Lesson plans, the case, what she saw or didn't see in the woods, wondering how angry her cats would be at her for a disruption in their usual meal.

"Agent Eisner?"

She jumps, wheeling around to the side of Edelgard standing by the door to her classroom, the lights she had apparently forgotten to turn on humming overhead. 

Edelgard's eyebrow raises. "I've been trying to get your attention for a few minutes now, are you alright?" 

Byleth blinks, heart thundering in her chest and mind finally blessedly blank. "Uh, Yea. I just..." she looks behind her, papers scattered across her desk in a fairly nonsensical set up. 

How much time had she just lost wandering in her own mind?

"I'm fine," she lies, shifting her feet and tapping her fingers against the wood behind her. "Just was distracted is all. What are you...doing here?"

"Manuela invited me out to breakfast," Edelgard replies, leaning against the door-frame. "I had dropped her off for her class and was about to head back to my office when I heard you in here, in the dark, muttering to yourself." 

Her suit is red today and Byleth isn't sure why she even takes notice to it anymore, dress-shirt and gloves both an inky black void that seizes her attention. "Oh," she says lamely, eyes sliding up to the way a few strands of her normally slicked back hair have gotten free.

She looks disheveled for her.

"I was thinking...about the case that we just picked up."

Edelgard hums her question, bringing her attention back enough she briefly meets the other's eyes. "Body was found out in the woods this morning, frozen in an ice sculpture."

"That's...extravagant," Edelgard drawls, approaching her. "And incredibly risky, they would have had to move that from their workshop to the woods."

"Yea," Byleth agrees, slipping behind her desk and sitting down. It puts just enough distance between them that she's comfortable letting Edelgard get so close again. Staring down at where the other's fingers rest against the wood. "It was an accident turned into something seriously spiteful. Whoever the victim was really pissed off the killer so much so that they wanted to prove that they were the best."

She suppresses the impulse to reach out and touch the leather of Edelgard's gloves, wondering if it's as soft as it looks. She wonders if the other woman ever takes them off outside of obviously changing them to match with her suits. Wonders still what her hands look like underneath.

Scarred? Burned? Normal? Maybe she had poor circulation and the gloves were to keep her hands warm.

"Byleth."

Edelgard is closer now, weight balanced on the tips of her fingers as she leans over the desk. Byleth's breath seizes in her lungs, eyes widening in shock at the proximity the two of them suddenly share. She sits back, abrupt enough her chair squeaks.

"Sorry!" She sputters, looking anywhere but the other woman.

"You didn't hear a word I just said did you?" Edelgard asks, voice low with amusement. She straightens, arms folding behind her back.

"N-no, I-I spaced out again," she admits, guilty. She neglects to tell her why.

"I see," Edelgard murmurs, running her fingers through her hair. Byleth thinks the silver at the tips has spread higher up the short strands, thinks that the other woman would probably go gray long before she did.

It wouldn't take away from her attractiveness.

"Normally I don't like to repeat myself," Edelgard says, looking over her shoulder as the students begin to file in, several of them stopping to stare at the stranger in the classroom with their Professor. "But I suppose it will have to wait," she adds, turning back to look at her, lips drawn in a half smirk. "I wouldn't wait to keep you from your students, and I have an appointment to keep."

Byleth blinks, and Edelgard is gone.

\---------------

"I think Hegemon is a woman."

_Blink. Inhale._

She turns and it's Dorothea there before her desk this time, contemplating the slide still on the projector screen behind them. She doesn't remember talking about Hegemon, doesn't remember even reaching this slide, having spent most of the class talking about accident killers and identifying which ones might escalate and which ones might not.

_Accident._

_Hegemon...never did anything by accident._

"Why do you say that?" She asks, looking at the younger woman quietly, suddenly intensely interested in whatever else she might have to say. She had heard many theories to the same or to Hegemon being a man, but had never committed to any, always wanting to be absolutely sure before she made an assumption one way or another.

"Come on, Professor, I'm sure you of all people have noticed. You just want to be totally sure so you haven't gone either way, right?" Dorothea looks a little out of place in the FBI trainee uniform, long hair tied back in a ponytail that's missing her usual choice of pageboy hats.

She has her there.

"There's a certain....gentle meticulousness with it you don't often see. Hegemon is so, so very through and so, so very careful to make sure nothing is out of place. It's obsessive attention to detail. Like, looking at this picture, none of those swords are crooked, everything is as perfect as any human is capable of getting." Dorothea taps her chin in thought, shifting from foot to foot.

She's reminded distantly of the trainees she was always worried about. The brightest stars, the determined ones, the ones that got too close and burnt out too quick...or went missing.

Or got too close.

"That might mean Hegemon is simply OCD, their crime scenes are always immaculate. No blood, no dirt if it's not outside, no fibers." One such person comes to mind, and Byleth immediately dismisses it.

"Fair enough," Dorothea concedes, rocking back on her heels. "But I still think Hegemon is a woman. I'll look deeper into it as a side project, to make absolutely sure I'm right. Then I'll sway you to my line of thinking!" She laughs, and Byleth smiles.

The shadow flickers out of the corner of her eye again like a broken florescent. Her smile crumbles.

"Professor, are you okay?"

She looks back, meets the faintly worried lines of Dorothea's face. She smiles again, shaking, but as genuine as she can make it.

"I'm fine. Just tired...had an early morning." She turns the projector off, sets the remote down.

"Then you should have an early evening," Dorothea comments. "Alright, I've taken up enough of your time. I'll see you tomorrow!"

She's gone when Byleth turns back, her goodbye whispered to the empty space.

\---------

Edelgard picks up on the third ring, accented voice smooth and ever patient. " _Hello?_ "

"Dr. Hresvelg, I...I wasn't entirely truthful with you earlier." She struggles to not sound as nervous and fails, around her the darkness presses in and her head aches, a dull throbbing pain. "Today's been...weird." 

She can't even be sure what it is, maybe she was too tired and seeing things. Or maybe she was finally going crazy and Edelgard had been wrong about her initial diagnoses. _Maybe I'm not sane_ , she thinks, laughing to herself. _Maybe I'm just so good at faking it I fooled even myself._

" _Weird how?_ " Edelgard asks over the line, low and soothing. She imagines her sitting behind her desk, phone held to her ear and pen tapping lightly against the appointment book Byleth had seen the last couple times she was at her office. 

"I thought I saw something this morning at the crime scene...a shadow and I saw it again just a few minutes ago. I wanted to believe it was just a trick of the light or that I was just tired and seeing things, but...I don't know." She wanted to go home, wanted to curl up with her cats and hide under her blankets until the world went away and she could finally fall asleep. 

She wanted assurance.

She wanted someone there.

" _A shadow?_ " A question, curious, but not disbelieving. " _And how long have you been seeing this...shadow?_ "

"Just today," she replies, hiding her face in her free hand. She doesn't mention _her_ shadow, the shadow of Hegemon that trails her in crime scenes and in her nightmares.

" _'Just today?'_ " She imagines Edelgard writing now, having pulled a notebook containing all the random facts about Byleth over to add to them. She sounds like she's writing.

Maybe she's not.

"Yea, Just today. It was easier to brush off at the crime scene, but seeing it while I was talking to one of my students..." And she doesn't want to think of it somehow being linked to Dorothea's reappearance, doesn't want to think that maybe it's a remnant of her past. "Maybe I'm seeing ghosts," she says, laughs.

" _Do you believe in the supernatural?_ " Edelgard takes it seriously, inquiring into her joke like Byleth had told her something much less odd.

"About as much as I believe in God," she replies, sliding her fingers across her steering wheel. "Which, before you ask, I don't."  
This time Edelgard laughs.

" _God is a difficult thing to believe in these days, it feels as though it has either long abandoned us or is as merciless as the murderers you hunt_." _Tap. Tap. Tap_ of her pen.

"Whatever helps people sleep at night," Byleth replies, drumming her fingers against her steering wheel. "If God really was what people said it was, why do people suffer, you know?"

" _Some say it's because we were given the tools to survive, others believe it's because God was bound and shackled and molded into our image. It became what humans wanted it to become, not what it was._ " She hears Edelgard get up and the shuffle of papers.

" 'We were not crafted in his image, but his in ours,' " Byleth mutters, staring out at the parking lot. The sun is nearly gone, and she frowns at the idea of having to make her entire drive home in the dark. Nothing new, but nothing she enjoyed. 

" _Quoting Hegemon are you?_ " Edelgard comments, the edge of her voice lilting in a way that speaks of a smile. " _I can't say I disagree with that, however, I've always been one for science over religion._ "

Byleth leans forward, forehead pressed to the edge of the wheel, suddenly incredibly exhausted. "Yea, that....really stuck with me, I guess. It resonated with a lot of other people. Pissed off a whole bunch more."

" _As controversial opinions tend to do,_ " Edelgard replies. " _People set in their ways often do not wish to change, evidence or no._ "

That, she thinks, finally starting her car, was the absolute truth.

"True enough," she agrees, sitting back. "I'm sorry to have kept you so long, I bet you want to go home too. I'll see you...either at my next appointment or whenever we run into one another again."

" _Yes, that we will. Drive safe, Agent Eisner, and have a good night._ "

"Night."

She leaves her phone on the center console after she hangs up, making the long drive home in silence.

She sleeps uneasy.

\-----------

"It was frostbite that we saw on the victim."

Byleth pauses in the doorway to Catherine's office, head tilted. "So they froze to death," she comments, picking her way over to her usual chair.

"Yea, I'm guessing they probably got stuck in one of the freezers used to keep the ice until the carvers are ready for it. And our 'killer' decided either to leave them there, or found them too late and decided to make an art project out of them."

"I don't...think so," Byleth murmurs, sitting forward. "I think it was an argument and our killer left the victim in the freezer as 'punishment' but failed to realize how quickly hypothermia sets in in those kinds of conditions." She waves a hand. "By the time they came back...the victim was dead, or close to."

Catherine nods. "That's sure skirting the line of accident," she adds.

"Still an accident. The killer didn't intend for the victim to die, just to suffer for disrespecting the killer's art." Cruel and unusual, but still an accident. "Most of my students seem to think the killer will kill again," she adds after a minute, sitting straight in her chair.

"Do you agree?" Catherine asks, closing the report and setting it down.

"I'm inclined to, if they get this upset when someone has something negative to say about their sculpting, I won't be surprised. We can just keep hoping for the latter, that maybe their rage subsided and they realized what they did was wrong." Hell, maybe they'd even turn themselves in.

Her lips twitch and she turns to hide the threatening smile against the palm of her hand.

Fat chance.

"Something funny?" Catherine asks, peering at her.

"I was just thinking how lucky we would be if our killer decided to turn themselves in, is all." There's a moment even Catherine fights with the idea of it, lips thinning in an effort to hide her own sense of dark amusement at how farfetched it is.

"Wouldn't that be a thing," she replies, leaning back. "You and I both know that's not going to happen. What's more likely is someone in the family, or someone they work with, will out them."

"Still makes our job easier," Byleth says, crossing her legs. "I guess we'll want to ask around, see if there's any sculptors that get angry and vocal when their work isn't appreciated. Especially when it's insulted." Anyone got upset about things like that.

But not too many tended to end up killing over it.

"Do you think it would be a well known one? Or one trying to make their way onto the scene?" Catherine asks, picking up her pen to make some notes. 

"Or," Byleth muses, tapping her fingers against the arms of her chair. "They used to be famous somewhere else, lost that fame for some reason and came here to start over, thinking they'd do just as well...and...quickly discovered that wasn't going to be the case."

She leaned on the latter.


	7. Andantino

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"That's good!" Dorothea says, some of the tension in her shoulders easing. "I can't imagine trying to balance being a teacher and a field agent, it must be exhausting."_
> 
> _It is, Byleth thinks, lips twitching in a slight smile, but she wouldn't trade it for the world. As hard as it was to crawl in and out of the minds of killers, she couldn't live with herself if she sat back and did nothing. Not when she could make a difference._
> 
> _"Sometimes it gets a little hard to balance," she says, eyes lifting from Dorothea to where Catherine stands in the doorway. "But I like helping people in any way I can, both teaching and out in the field."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapterrrrrr. There's so much talking. Also it'll be a game of spot the huge Hannibal reference in this one for those of y'all who have seen or are watching the show.

Dorothea catches her after class, pausing in front of her desk while she's putting her binder and the collected papers away. She's not entirely looking forward to having to grade them all, she never was, but it was par for the course in this line of work. 

"How are you feeling today, Professor?" She asks, laptop and notebook held to her chest. "You seemed less out of it."

"I am," she replies, setting her suitcase on the top of her desk. "Got a full night's sleep." For her, at least, but she doesn't mention that. She didn't need Dorothea worrying about her any more than she had already. She had worried herself, even, startled at all the things she had missed and all the things she had seen that weren't actually there.

She feels better now and at this point, that's all that matters to her.

"That's good!" Dorothea says, some of the tension in her shoulders easing. "I can't imagine trying to balance being a teacher and a field agent, it must be exhausting."

_It is_ , Byleth thinks, lips twitching in a slight smile, but she wouldn't trade it for the world. As hard as it was to crawl in and out of the minds of killers, she couldn't live with herself if she sat back and did nothing. Not when she could make a difference.

"Sometimes it gets a little hard to balance," she says, eyes lifting from Dorothea to where Catherine stands in the doorway. "But I like helping people in any way I can, both teaching and out in the field."

"She's the best we've got, too," Catherine says, drawing Dorothea's attention. "You're Trainee Arnault, right?"

"That's me," Dorothea replies. "Agent...Nevrand, I presume?"

"Nice to meet you," Catherine says, making her way into the room. "I'm not disturbing anything, am I?"

"No," Byleth says, leaning on her desk. "Just small talk." Catherine knows her past, knows who Dorothea is and a bit of what the girl means to her. She was almost sure Catherine had wanted to get a chance to see the girl face to face instead of just in pictures and a name on a sheet of paper.

"I guess I should get going anyway," Dorothea says, taking a step back. "I'll see you next class, Professor. Agent Nevrand." She waves, then turns heading out of the room.

"See you," Byleth says, watching her retreat before turning her focus back on Catherine. "I'm guessing there's some new details about the case?" The other woman never showed up without a reason, and those reasons usually involved absurd tabloids or case related things.

"What if I'm just here to see if you wanted to go to, I don't know, dinner or something?" Catherine asks, resting her hands on her hips. 

"I'd wonder what twilight zone I wandered in to, honestly," Byleth replies, amused. Catherine laughs, nodding.

"Ouch. But I guess you've got a point there." She shrugs, lifting a hand up to run it through her hair. "Down to business, then, but one of these times I've gotta change up my routine and hit you with a social call."

Byleth snorts. "I'll believe it when I see it. What did you find out?"

"The Victim was Arthur Randall, 42. Wife reported him missing a couple of days ago and the police report said that he left to go make an order and never came back," Catherine says, sighing.

"Let me guess," Byleth says, crossing her arms. "He was ordering an ice sculpture."

"Bingo, only problem is he neglected to tell his wife where he was ordering from, just that he was going on the recommendation of a friend. They can't ever make it easy for us," she says, splaying her hands and shaking her head. 

"It's only easy in TV shows and movies," Byleth replies, shifting her weight. "Wasn't Randall that piece of work that caused all that drama surrounding one of the local restaurants because he didn't like the service?" She remembered reading something about it on the front page of a local newspaper while she was waiting in line at the store. At the time she had dismissed it, thinking he was just another stuffy asshole, now...well.

"Yea, that's him," Catherine affirms. "His wife insists he wasn't always that bad, he had just had a bad day."

Byleth raises an eyebrow, humming a low note. "Not an excuse to be an asshole to some poor bastard trying to do their job." 

"No, but even if he was an asshole he still didn't deserve to be made into an art project," Catherine fires back, shoving her hands in her pockets. "That's not a fate I'd wish on anyone."

She doesn't argue, since despite Byleth's dislike of people like Randall, his type didn't deserve to die for his behavior. 

"Anyway, it's getting late," Catherine says, rubbing the back of her neck. "You probably want to get home to your cats."

"Before they destroy another piece of furniture? Yea." She still had that chair, it was the one she spent most of her time in when she was home for the evening or for the weekends. She sat there to read or very rarely turn the old TV on to find something to watch.

Instead, her phone rings, shrill enough in the silence of the room it startles both of them. Catherine stares, hands half held out at her sides, blinking and Byleth nearly laughs at the look of her in that moment, so taken off guard for a woman usually so on point. 

"Were you expecting a call?" She asks after a second, clearly wondering if Byleth was going to bother to answer it.

"No," she says, pulling the phone over to look. She frowns. "It's Dr. Hresvelg."

She wonders what the other woman could be calling her about as she picks her phone up, checking in on her? Had she missed a session? She had absolutely no idea or why the Doctor would call her out of the blue otherwise. "Hello?" She hears the murmur of conversation in the background, humming with anxiety she can practically taste over the line.

" _That case you mentioned,_ " Edelgard starts, a calm undercurrent to the buzzing nervousness. " _The one with the body encased in an ice sculptor._ "

"Yea," Byleth says, drawing the word out on a syllable. "What about it?" There's a voice closer, a man's, asking who she'd called. Edelgard deigns to answer him, and Byleth can almost see her lifting her hand to request his silence while she finished her conversation.

" _It's...quite literally fallen into my lap,_ " Edelgard says, a faintly amused edge hanging in the curl of her accent. " _I came expecting dinner and a show, but...I certainly got more than I bargained for_."

"Where are you?" Byleth asks, pointing at her phone and mouthing 'another murder' when Catherine raises an eyebrow in question. The other woman rolls her eyes, swearing under her breath. 

" _The Charleston,_ " Edelgard replies, and she hears her shifting in her chair. " _Someone's already called the police. They just arrived._ "

"We're on our way," Byleth says, grabbing her suitcase and heading out of the room after Catherine. 

" _I'll be here,_ " Edelgard assures, humming a note low in her throat seconds before she hangs up.

"I hate it when you're right," Catherine says, steps echoing as they head down the hallway. "And you almost always are."

"I hate it when I'm right, too," Byleth replies, shoving her phone in her pocket. "But I guess it's better then being horrifically wrong."

Catherine huffs a laugh, phone in hand. "You're right, being wrong in this line of work is definitely worse."

Byleth smiles, thin and shaking.

So much for going home.

\-----------

The Charleston is about what she expects it, pretty and expensive. Half of her wants to see what it's like when there's not a grotesque display sitting dead center of the dining room, wants to see what it's like when everyone is enjoying dinner and laughing and drinking, not a bunch of nervous wrecks. She could never actually see herself eating her, aware that the dinner cost alone would probably be more than a single paycheck for her.

"I hate places like this," Catherine mumbles beside her as they make their way through the line of police and diners that were being interviewed. "It's suffocating."

Welcome to my everyday, Byleth thinks, keeping her head down and her mind as blank as she can get it. She's already twitchy and uncomfortable, forced too close to Catherine's side to keep herself away from everyone else. It's claustrophobic despite being so large, everyone crowding to the edges of the room to be as far away from the ice sculpture as they can possibly get.

She can't say as she blames them, casting a glance up at it where it stands. It's more elaborate then the first one, bigger with intricate patterns carved delicately and lovingly into the ice walls encasing the corpse at it's heart. The woman there looks almost peaceful, not at all like Randall's horror. "Like she fell asleep," Byleth whispers to herself, taking in the slopes and the arches of the rest of the statue.

"What was it supposed to even be?" Catherine asks, tilting her head.

"I believe it was supposed to be a fountain of some kind."

Byleth turns to the sight of Edelgard a few feet off to her side, eyes angled on the sculpture. She's in all black today, from her suit to her dress shirt to her gloves, hair perfectly styled. It's striking and for a moment Byleth compares her to her shadow. "I was looking forward to seeing how the sculptor was going to make said fountain function, but instead," Edelgard flicks a hand, leather glistening slightly in the bright light. "Imagine my surprise when this gets unveiled instead."

She can't, really can't, see actual surprise etched into the other woman's face at all. It would be something subtle, a blink, a slight part of lips, a raised eyebrow.

"Did you see anything suspicious?" Catherine asks, getting right down to business.

"I did not," Edelgard replies, attention finally drawing to them. Her expression is something quietly amused almost, lips subtly curved and eyes faintly narrowed. "I'm afraid that was here when I arrived and was seated. You would have to ask the staff, though I'm sure the police have already done that."

They did, after all, have a bit of a head start.

"Yea, I'll do that in a bit," Catherine says, rubbing the back of her neck. "What do you think Byleth?"

She thinks a lot, and she thinks nothing at all, her mind a chaotic mess as she struggles to wade entirely through the sea of emotions and minds in the room with them. "I think there's too many people here," she admits, deciding to go with honesty. 

"You're overwhelmed," Edelgard says, closer suddenly, and Byleth can see the black line of her out of her peripheral. "You have to pick out the ghost in the sea of the living."

"Yea," Byleth says, turning her head slightly, focus falling somewhere at Edelgard's jawline. "It's like a raging river and I'm a log in the current, being battered and shoved along by the water."

A warm hand rests against her shoulder, heavy, solid and comforting.

It brings her back a little, and she blinks sucking in a breath. She hadn't realized just how far she had waded out until the second she was brought back to shore, catching on a sturdy rock while the water rushed by underneath her. Edelgard smiles, her head tilting slightly to one side.

Her anchor.

"You know the ghost in the room," Edelgard is saying, leaning a little closer, close enough Byleth can see the darker flecks of color in the other woman's eyes. "All these other people are strangers to be tuned out, like a conversation at an orchestra. It's distracting, but you must focus on the music."

Inhale, eyes closed, exhale. 

She settles her attention back on the sculpture, faintly mourning the loss of Edelgard's hand when the Doctor withdraws. She stays close, presence lingering just over her shoulder as she reaches for the only other familiar presence in the room, the signature anger and arrogance of their killer.

_Three swings back, and she's standing in front of a covered statue, hands resting on her hips. She's blended in with the delivery crew this time, hat pulled down over her eyes to hide her face. All they had to do was see her masterpiece, let them speculate what kind of artist could pull of such a feat. She had perfected her craft, had found the perfect inspiration after a simple accident._

_Anger born from insults and slights against her had become her muse, had lit a fire she had thought lost and rekindled her passion for her art. Her desire for fame and recognition had faded in favor of bringing forth everything she had to show._

_"Sign here, please," she says when a member of staff comes over to accept the order, smile just visible underneath the visor of her hat. She takes her clipboard back once the woman has taken pen to paper, inclining her head and tucking the plastic under one arm. "Have a nice evening."_

_She leaves with a smile on her face, aware that she would eventually see her work on TV, hear whispers about it from the Baltimore elite. Each and every person would eventually know her, know of her. They wouldn't be able to ignore her, or make her feel worthless again._

In. Out. She comes back to herself slowly, icy claws threatening to drag her back down. She can feel them there, hooked on her ribs and dragging along her bones and skin as she peels herself away.

Inhale-

Edelgard is there at her side again, hand curling around the back of her neck. "Agent Eisner," she says, focused on the side of her face. "You're alright."

She wonders if she looked alarmed, looked like she was struggling as much as she felt like she had been. Catherine wavers on her other side, hands in her pockets, mild concern settled on her features. 

"Did I....do something weird?" Byleth asks, suddenly dreading the answer the second the words leave her mouth. Edelgard withdraws a second time, fingers sliding away, hands dropping back to her sides.

"Not weird, no," she says, tilting her head. "But you looked like you were about to faint for a moment."

"I...It was hard to...come back," she says, whispers, her truth wrung from her by her own two hands. Something about Edelgard's expression changes, darkens, then evens out before Byleth can even begin trying to pin it down.

"But you did," she murmurs, smile slight.

"Yea." She wonders how many more times can she before she can't, wonders not for the first time what she would be like then, how she would change if she remained in the head of a killer for good.

_I'm Byleth Eisner, It's eight pm and I'm in Baltimore, Maryland...._

Inhale. Exhale.

"The killer was here," she says when she's sure she's as steady as she can be, looking up at the sculpture. "They dropped it off, pretending to be part of the delivery company. So while the staff did interact with them, they wouldn't be able to pick them out as anyone suspicious."

She pauses, lips parted. "This was an important one for them, they treated the victim with a lot more respect despite the fact that they were slighted by them. She died painlessly."

"Better than freezing to death," Catherine mutters beside her, annoyed. "Alright, I'll go see what I can find out from the police and the staff. You don't have to hang around inside if you don't want to Eisner." Catherine's eyes shift, lifting over her shoulder to where Edelgard still lingers, purposely trying not to pay attention to their conversation. "Actually, Dr. Hresvelg, could you-"

"I can," Edelgard says, already aware of the question the other woman was about to ask. "I'll make sure she gets home."

She feels a little uncomfortable, just being deposited on to another person like this. Even if that other person happens to be her therapist. She feels like she's inconveniencing her.

"I can wait until you're done," she protests weakly. "I'll just sit out in the car." She turns then, accidentally meeting Edelgard's eyes before she averts her own. "It's fine, I don't...I'm sure you want to get home."

"You're not being inconvenient, Byleth," Edelgard says, so easily reading her again. "I wouldn't have said 'yes' if it would have been a problem." She holds her hand out to the side slightly, a quiet invitation to come along when she was ready. 

"I-" she mutters, floundering like a fish on a hook. She had no other argument, and the part of her that really just wanted to go home and sleep was winning out against the part of her that wasn't sure it wanted to be in a car alone with Edelgard. "Alright, if it's really not a problem..."

"It's not," Edelgard assures, another one of her faint smiles curving at the edges of her mouth.

Byleth nods, finding Catherine already absorbed in a conversation with one of the officers when she turns around to say something to her. Shaking her head slightly she leaves instead, following behind Edelgard as the Doctor weaves easily between the people already slowly beginning to file out.

\-------

The ride back to Quantico starts out silent, from the moment she slides into Edelgard's Aston Martin from the moment the other woman carefully pulls out into traffic neither of them say a word. Instead Byleth settles back in her seat and leans her head against the window, listening to the low roar of the engine. 

It's different from being in the car with Catherine, quickly noticing the distinct lack of the other's restless energy. Edelgard is as calm as she always is, unhurried in all facets of her life. It's a calming lull she's suddenly aware she could fall asleep to, and it makes her straighten, blinking into the city lit darkness.

_When did it start raining?_

Edelgard is focused on the road, hands coiled at a perfectly even spacing on the steering wheel. Byleth finds herself staring, focused just off center of her eye, her cheek, the edge of her jawline.

"Is something interesting?" Edelgard asks. Byleth startles, sucking in a breath and looking away, focusing instead on the back and forth motion of the windshield wipers.

"No, I spaced out a little is all," she replies, swallowing past her pulse. 

"Oh? You were staring so intently I thought otherwise," Edelgard says, tone light, smile a little more prominent.

"I don't find you that interesting, Doctor, no offense." It's a lie, a whole entire lie and she manages it with an even tone and a straight face, staring hard out the window. It was the exact opposite, it had been from the second time they had run into one another on campus and shared a meal. Edelgard had a natural draw to her, a charm that made people hang on her every word.

"You will," Edelgard says, low, darkly humored like she'd stated the punchline to a joke. _You already do_ hangs unsaid in the air between them like a thinly veiled dagger held behind a back. 

Byleth shifts in her seat, a noise welling in her throat that makes it out as a sigh. She reaches, searching for a topic to change the conversation to. To move it away from the mess she had so neatly dug herself in to.

"Have you seen the shadow, today?" Edelgard asks while they're idling at a stop light, the red of it casting odd shadows across the Doctor's face.

_Only you._

"No," she replies, thankful and not for the new direction. "I think it was just a lack of sleep, I didn't really get that much the night before or any of the nights previous..."

"What about headaches? Or loss of time?"

Two nails in a coffin.

"Yes...but I've been dealing with both for years. The headaches are a family thing, the loss of time is a me spacing out thing," she says, shrugging a shoulder. "It's nothing serious."

Edelgard spares her a glance, a flicker of eyes and a raised eyebrow. "I see."

"I'm fine, I swear." She thinks, she hopes, all the years she spent trying to convince herself she was and she was starting to question it again. She could admit to being shaken seeing the shadow, could admit to being thrown off about the headaches and the feeling she'd gone through half a day without being aware of it. "If it gets to be something more serious I'll tell you...Besides you didn't ask me this when I called you, why now?"

Edelgard hums low, fingers sliding against the wheel as she turns into the parking lot. "You were panicked when you called me, so I focused more on calming you down rather then pressing you about your condition, that was why you called me, no? To ease your mind?"

She's right, of course, and Byleth makes a noise of quiet agreement. "Yea, I think if you had asked me that the other night I'd have gotten defensive and angry." She knows herself, she'd have stonewalled Edelgard instead of helping either of them. She had already gotten a little short even now. She could only imagine how much worse she'd have been.

"Then you understand my choice to cater to your needs rather than my own concerns," Edelgard comments, one hand dropping to shift the car into park before she folds her arms over the steering wheel, chin rested against her forearm. 

"Yea, I do," she replies, unbuckling her seat-belt and reaching for the door. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come off so snippy." She opens it, cool, humid air spilling into the car. She watches it rain for a moment before she turns to look back at the other woman, caught by how pale her eyes look in the odd lighting of the parking lot and the car. 

"I'll see you later," she says finally, blinking and looking away. 

"Drive safely," Edelgard comments, straightening.

"I will," Byleth assures, getting out of the car and curling into her coat against the rain. "G'night."

"Goodnight, Byleth."

She shuts the door, steps back and watches as the other woman pulls out of the parking lot and back into traffic. She turns and heads back to her own car, sliding into the chilled interior and starting it, immediately flicking the heat on. She sits for a moment before starting on her own drive.

Coming home is a relief.

_She dreams of skeletal hands cast in ice, touch burning as they drag her deep, deep under the water until her lungs scream for air and she chokes, liquid flooding in. She reaches, fingers splayed, tips rippling the surface of the lake._

_Ice. There's no breaching the ice--_

_She drowns._

\------

She gets waylaid almost immediately after coming in, Catherine waving her back out with her phone pressed to her ear and a vaguely annoyed look on her face. Byleth steps aside as the other woman passes her, sighing quietly and looking down at her watch. 

"Byleth!"

Her head lifts and she finds Catherine standing outside, waiting.

"Coming, sorry," she says, jogging back out and following Catherine again. "What happened?" She asks the second she's close enough, barely keeping pace with the taller woman's longer strides as they head for her car. _Why was she in such a rush?_

"There was an incident at a local flower shop," Catherine says, climbing into her car and waiting until Byleth is in the seat beside her. "Apparently some fight broke out outside the place and scared the living hell out of the young lady manning the shop, so she called the cops. Only reason I got a call was because one of the guys was allegedly waving an ice pick around. I don't know if has anything to do with our killer, but I want to check it out regardless."

Byleth nods once, frowns, leaning her forehead against the window. "They're a very confident killer, but also very easily provoked. If I had to guess whoever set them off was insulting their craft. Or it was over something very, very stupid and had absolutely nothing to do with us, as you said."

Catherine snorts a laugh, leaning slightly over the wheel as she turns out onto the road and navigates their way through the hectic morning traffic. The difference in the energy of the car after last night is baffling almost, leaves her reeling slightly and struggling to come to terms with it.

Like literal night and day.

"I want to hope it has nothing to do with us," Catherine says, easing her way down a side street. "But at the same time I want to finally know what this asshole looks like, you get it?" 

"Yea," she agrees, muffling her yawn with the back of her hand. "We can't go chasing every person who decides to pick up an ice pick and threaten someone else with it."

Wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last time. People tended to use some very unorthodox weapons when they had nothing else at their disposal. But that was part of life at the BSU.

Catherine parks at the curb and both of them climb out, the other woman taking a few extra seconds to make her way to the sidewalk. The flower shop is small, stuck between two other buildings that mostly dwarf it. She assumes immediately that the second level is an apartment, and whoever mans the shop lives there.

It turns out to be a very nervous woman with a shock of purple hair and an inability to look either of them in the face. Byleth immediately feels bad for her, and also completely understands her anxiety. She introduces herself as Bernadetta Varley, shifting from foot to foot and asking if she was in trouble.

"No," Catherine says, calm. "Not at all, we're just here to follow up on the incident you called the police about."

"O-Oh, I-I already told the police everything I know. Why not ask them?" She shuffles papers on the counter, orders probably, stacking them neatly and then re-stacking them again as a way to distract herself. "I-I really should be getting back to work."

"I did talk to the police already," Catherine says, looking out of the corner of her eye to gauge the way Byleth approaches or doesn't. She shakes her head slightly, a warning to let the girl have space lest she shut down entirely. "But I need to hear from you too, there's details you know that the police might not have written down."

"Look, I just...I heard a fight outside one guy was telling another that he couldn't park his truck in front of the building and it got really loud and scary so I called the police and went and hid in the back room, that's all. I swear." 

It comes out so fast and so rushed it takes Byleth a few seconds to fully process the statement, a part of her minorly impressed with how quickly the other woman could speak.

"Did you see what they looked like?" Byleth asks, quieter, patient.

"No, not really, please I really have to get back to work-"

Catherine's jaw ticks, but to her credit the frustration doesn't boil over. Byleth knows it isn't at Bernadetta, but at the whole thing in general. 

The door opens behind them, bell ringing softly. 

"Hey, sorry but we're in the middle of an inter-" Catherine turns in the middle of her statement, then stops, startled. "Dr. Hresvelg? I didn't call you..." her eyes flick to Byleth and she shrugs, glancing to where the woman in question stands at the doorway, looking distinctly annoyed.

Her suit is in deep blues today, a black trench coat and those same leather gloves framing it all perfectly. "No, you didn't," Edelgard drawls, slipping the rest of the way through the door and shutting it quietly behind her. "Miss Varley texted me in a panic, so I came as quickly as I could. Low and behold it's you two I find here." 

Byleth isn't sure she's ever heard Edelgard so irritated, her tone rough and clipped. One thing that _was_ sure was, she didn't want to be on the other end of it for much longer. "We just got here," she says, holding up her hands. "Catherine got a call from the officers who talked to her so we came to follow up, believe me we didn't mean to cause any upset."

The lines of Edelgard's face soften slightly as she speaks, tension easing out of her shoulders with a subtle sigh. 

"It-It's true Dr. Hresvelg," Bernadetta stutters, coming to their defense. "Wh-When I texted you the officers were still here and I didn't expect anyone else to show up, it's n-not their fault."

Edelgard nods, the rest of her irritation seemingly bleeding off or stored away for another individual. "Good then," she murmurs, crossing the space and very carefully making her way between where Byleth stands and the flowers beside her. "These two women are good people," Edelgard adds resting her hand against the counter and turning to look at them.

A barrier between them and Bernadetta, which the girl looks incredibly thankful for. 

"If you tell them everything you can remember, they might be able to catch the man that scared you so badly." Her tone is gentle, soothing, expression warm. It's an incredibly crafted mask, and Byleth realizes that each patient gets a different facet of the good Doctor.

"Okay," Bernadetta says, breathing in and out slowly. "Okay."

Catherine nods, eyes sliding to Edelgard before back to Bernadetta. "The two men who fought, you mentioned that one of them was waving an ice pick around to the officers that came by, can you tell me what he looked like?"

"He uh, he's about six feet tall, red hair....really terrible fake tan. Uh, that's, that's all I really saw I'm sorry." she looks down at the counter again, gripping the edges of it and thinking. "Oh! Wait the truck he had was one for a local delivery company! Um. Oh no what was the name of it..."

"If it's the same company that delivered to the Charleston we'll have our first really big lead," Catherine says, leaning in to Byleth's side and giving Bernadetta time to gather her thoughts. "But unless she can remember the list is still pretty useless, without us checking them all out."

"Not many deliver to high end restaurants, however," Edelgard cuts in, leaning against the counter. "Especially ice sculptures, those take specialized trucks after all. So theoretically you could narrow it down to those companies that have those sorts of trucks, which shortens the list considerably."

"Arks!" Bernadetta exclaims suddenly, bringing all of them to look back at her. "It was um, Arks delivery, they're always boasting about how fast they are...they are not safe drivers."

Byleth can't help but laugh as Catherine thanks Bernadetta for her help and apologizes for keeping her from her work for so long. They leave, Edelgard remaining for a moment longer.

"Here's the plan," Catherine says as they convene outside, gathered around the front end of Edelgard's Aston Martin. "I'm going to call Galatea and have her go back to the Charleston and ask if Arks has ever run deliveries for them, and then we're going to go check them out and see if we can find our man."

She waves her phone, asking for a minute before she slips away to the other side of her SUV, leaning on the side of it. Byleth tunes out the sound of her voice, glancing as soon as she hears Edelgard's steps on the sidewalk behind her.

The Doctor walks louder on purpose when it comes to approaching her.

"Are you off to your next leg of the investigation?" Edelgard asks, pausing by her.

"Yea, Catherine is calling in another agent to go back to the Charleston and see...then I guess we're off to check out Arks." She's not sure they'll even find this guy there, but it's about the best lead they have.

"He may return to the scene of his crime," Edelgard comments, stepping around in front of her and resting a hand against the hood of her car. "To see how the Charleston has changed in the wake of what he'd done. Catching him may be as simple as going out to dinner."

Byleth blinks, raising her eyebrows. "Might be..." A second, two, then the realization hits her. "Are you implying I should go out to eat at the Charleston? I can't afford that, let alone get a reservation."

"I know," Edelgard says, fishing for her keys. "But I can. Ultimately it's up to Agent Nevrand, but do let her know I'm willing to help you both out if you need."

Then she's gone, slipping into the driver's seat of her car and starting the engine. Byleth steps back up onto the sidewalk, once again left watching her as she pulls away.


	8. Andante Moderato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"From the woods to a restaurant, there's too many other variables, too many other very public places. Another restaurant, a park, a specialized display at a shopping center._
> 
> _I want the world to see my art._
> 
> _"We have to catch him," Byleth whispers, frowning. Like they had to catch any of the killers they chased. It was the same pressure, but killers like this one -- the theatrical ones -- the ones more than willing to leave their kills on display in the most public of places. It added a layer of pressure to the need to catch them, to lessen people's trauma as much as possible."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to flibety for the beta! I'm glad to have you onboard.

They leave as soon as Catherine gets off the phone with Galatea, Edelgard's offer lingering in the back of her mind as she pulls herself up into the passenger's side of the SUV. Catherine doesn't say anything, attention on her phone before she puts it down and starts the car, waiting for the moment she can pull out into traffic. She wonders if maybe they should have waited until Galatea got back to them with the answer.

But she also knows that there's no use in doing nothing with a potential lead hanging in front of them. No use in doing nothing when there could be another victim somewhere, waiting for their turn to be frozen and shaped into the next art piece. She has no idea where the next one would end up and worries about it.

From the woods to a restaurant, there's too many other variables, too many other very public places. Another restaurant, a park, a specialized display at a shopping center. 

_I want the world to see my art._

"We have to catch him," Byleth whispers, frowning. Like they had to catch any of the killers they chased. It was the same pressure, but killers like this one -- the theatrical ones -- the ones more than willing to leave their kills on display in the most public of places. It added a layer of pressure to the need to catch them, to lessen people's trauma as much as possible.

"We're going to," Catherine says from beside her, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. "We're going to put him away before he does something even more crazy."

"He'll still get his fifteen minutes of fame," Byleth says, bitter. "He has been, after all." The Sculptor, they called him, the name standing out on the front pages of newspapers or on the slow scroll of the news stations. She'd seen it all over tabloid websites, commentators digging in to all kinds of theories and spreading what little information the police could -- or would -- give them.

She knew he was getting off on it now, so many people aware of him, seeing his art. Proving his point one victim at a time; My art has no equal. And he was right, it didn't, there was no one else who made ice sculptures out of human bodies.

It was, after all, very illegal.

"I get it now," she says absently, frowning. "He's never been famous or well known, even where he was previously. He's always wanted to be famous to the point his desire has become narcissistic. He believes he is the best, he's the most original....and we're all feeding into that narcissism. He escalated because we gave him attention." She turns slightly, looking at Catherine beside her. 

The other woman sighs, rubbing a hand down her face as they pull to a stop at a light. "We couldn't just let Randall's death go unsolved."

"No, but the fact is, with social media and the news, it's impossible not to feed into the ego of killers like him," she says, tapping her fingers against her thighs. "Randall may have been an accident, but the second he saw the kind of attention he got, his ego drove him on. He thought 'I can do better than that, I can make something even more amazing.' "

She tries to put herself in Edelgard's shoes at that moment, wondering just how the other woman must have felt seeing a body revealed in the middle of a restaurant like that. After the surprise wore off, was she disgusted? Intrigued? Neutral? Confused? 

No, she knew what it was because I told her. Byleth thinks, leaning against the window again. She imagines the moment the ice sculpture was revealed, imagines Edelgard's subtle surprise easing into a calm neutrality as she reached for her phone to call them even with the fear and disgust rising in the restaurant around her. 

Unbothered, but pretending to be.

"You in there, Eisner?" 

Byleth blinks, coming back to the present to a stopped car. "Uh, yea sorry, I was just thinking," she says, looking at the woman beside her. "Did you hear from Galatea?"

"Yea," Catherine replies, putting her phone back in her pocket. "Turns out ARKS did deliver to the Charleston, she got a hold of the records and there was a truck that came the night of the sculpture reveal."

Byleth gets out, turning to look up at the building. "Which means, someone here may have seen our killer."

"That's what I'm hoping," Catherine says, shutting her door. Byleth follows her across the parking lot.

It becomes a process that drags on when they get inside, going through the introductions and the pleasantries. Byleth tunes it all out and quietly refuses to engage in beyond a word or two. The receptionist becomes a worker, then the manager, each going through the same phrases until Byleth can tell even Catherine is vaguely annoyed.

_Hi, how are you? What can we do for you today? Oh, you're with the FBI? Has someone done something wrong...? Let me get--_

Byleth hates small talk.

"How many people do we have to go through," Catherine mutters, hands on her hips, expression pinched. "It's like the mafia, no one knows anything."

"Maybe they really don't know anything," Byleth murmurs, shrugging. The rest of her words die in her throat with the appearance of said Manager. He looks stressed, offering a shaky smile and a half-assed handshake.

"Hello, I'm so sorry it took so long. I was--actually, come to think of it, my worker said you were FBI?"

Catherine's interest is immediately piqued, her frustration melting away in the place of something serious. "Yea," she says, straightening. "Why?"

"We had a truck stolen a few days ago.....but that's not why you're here is it." He shifts, wringing his hands, a shaky smile still twitching at the edges of hims mouth.

"No, you're right, we're not, but your case and ours might be linked. You deliver to The Charleston recently?" Catherine asks, crossing her arms. 

"We do deliver to them, but not recently, no. Did one of my trucks show up there?"

"Sure did, it dropped off an ice sculpture, that's part of what lead us here." Catherine doesn't mention the body, ever cautious, yet still getting the point across. "The other part was someone saw an argument between the truck driver and a shop keeper over a parking spot this morning."

 _The thief,_ Byleth thinks, looking away to watch the people as they come and go. She puts it together in her mind, frowning faintly to herself as she observes the path a worker takes with a dolley stacked high with boxes.

"How did the thief even get a hold of the truck?" Byleth asks suddenly, cutting into the middle of the conversation without even knowing where they were in it. Catherine goes silent, letting her take over. 

For a moment the manager looks startled, blinking owlishly at her like he'd forgotten she was there, like her question was so far detached from the current topic he needed a moment to catch up. She waits, wondering if her theory was correct.

"Uh, well, this might be a little farfetched but hear me out," he says, holding his hands up. Byleth almost laughs, biting the inside of her cheek to turn her near smirk into a faint grimace. 

"We're kinda used to farfetched," Catherine supplies, shrugging. "It's sorta part of our job." 

"I don't envy you," the manager says, shaking his head. "Anyway, we got this call for a delivery a few weeks ago, the guy was asking us to drop off an 'art project' in the middle of the woods. And before you ask me why we still took it, it's because our policy is 'don't ask, don't tell' which, in all honesty, I regret right now." 

Byleth can feel that regret, easing off of him like rain dripping off fingertips. There's fear, there's concern, there's outrage all bundled into a sense of anxiety.

_Leaves in the wind, whispering--_

"He paid well, and seemed nice, so when he called again asking for a shipment of ice, well. We accepted, I lost a truck and a delivery driver that day."

Byleth grimaces, the woman in ice flashing through her mind. 

"We....found one," Catherine ventures, slow, quiet. It only takes the manager a moment to understand, his face falling, skin paling with shock.

"Ohmygod," he whispers, covering his mouth with his hand. "Rachel....she was new too....that was only her fourth and I had finally let her drive without a partner...."

Neither of them envy his guilt and Byleth recoils away from it.

"Help us catch this guy and give Rachel and her family peace," Catherine says, stepping forward and resting a hand on the manager's shoulder. "Can you give us the license plate for her truck?"

"Yes." Choked out, followed by a rough inhale and a cough. "Yes, I can, please just give me a moment." 

"Poor bastard," Catherine mutters after he's left, her own sense of guilt settling like a shroud. "We gotta get this asshole, Byleth."

"You said we would," Byleth says, leaning into her side slightly. "So we will. Dr. Hresvelg said he may very well return to the scene of his recent crime and I have to agree with her, given how proud he was of it. He'll want to see how the Charleston's changed in response."

Catherine looks at her, eyebrow raised. "How do you even propose we get in there? Go to dinner? We can get in there without a reservation and that short notice? Not to mention where the hell are we getting the mon-"

Byleth cuts her off, holding up a hand. "Dr. Hresvelg."

"Oh. _Oh._ " Catherine grins, lopsided and toothy. "How nice of her to foot the bill."

If this all pans out, Byleth thinks, turning away as the manager comes back with a piece of paper. She doesn't listen to the rest of the conversation, following Catherine as she leaves.

_Behind her, claws click on the cement._

\---------

_It's serene and silent, landscape frozen in it's entirety, great iced-over trees curling up to the heavens like splayed ribs. Reaching......Reaching...._

_Byleth stands in the center of a lake, ice creaking underneath her with each step she almost takes. Shifting, threatening to slide, eyes downcast at the endless expanse of darkness stretching out beneath._

_One step, one wrong step--_

_The ice gives but she doesn't fall, water spilling upward from between the cracks, soaking through her boots and numbing her feet_

_'Let me tell you a story--'_

_Rain pours, sluicing off skin and soaking her clothes._

_'I think it may be one that interests you-'_

_She stands before the woman encased in ice, alive and moving, hands pressed to the wall of her prison. She looks ethereal like that, hair haloing out behind her, body drifting in water like a mermaid trapped in a tank. She shouldn't be there, but she looks at home, smile gentle, face pressed close against the edge._

_'Hello there, I was waiting for you to notice me.'_

_Byleth reaches out, finger brushing against the surface of the ice._

_Water fills her lungs, the woman speaks, lips moving but Byleth hears nothing but the pounding rush of water._

_'Now you understand how we **felt-** '_

\---------

She comes to on her porch, the morning chill eating away at her exposed skin, fingers and toes numb. Her cats pooling around her, meowing, confused as to why she's even out here this early. Why she's leaving without feeding them.

"What-" she whispers, looking around, dazed. "How did I--was I sleep walking?"

Strike three on the list of 'concerning behavior.'

Slowly she retreats back inside, shoving her hands underneath her arms and calling for her cats to come back. Eventually they all do, clustering around in the living room and rubbing against her legs as she rummages around the kitchen for coffee, for painkillers, for food.

The kibble hits the bowls with an unnaturally loud clatter, the sound rattling up through her skull and in her teeth.

She goes back to bed until her alarm shrills.

\-------

"I'm pretty sure I was sleep walking this morning." She's never sure why she feels compelled to tell Edelgard all of her issues without her usual stubborn roundabout she gives everyone else. It's just....easy to let it roll off her tongue, to unburden herself even if she still feels as though airing all her problems would inconvenience the person she's talking to.

_I'm your therapist, Byleth, it's my job to care._

Edelgard watches her from her seat, chin propped gently against her fingers, eyes searching her face. There's a kind of concern there, something subtle and easy to miss like most of her expressions. Short, fleeting, gone as quickly as they appear.

"It's the first time....it's happened, that I've sleepwalked--slept-walked? Walked in my sleep." She feels like an idiot, embarrassment burning hot on her cheeks. "I--I was having this really weird dream and when I woke up on was on my porch."

She'd gotten home late as it was, spending most of her time after they got back from ARKS grading papers and preparing for her next lesson. Catherine had left her there with a promise she'd call her as soon as Lysithea was able to trace the license plate and find where the truck was.

So far, nothing.

".....Sleepwalking has many causes," Edelgard says quietly, frowning. "You mentioned your headaches, but what about fevers? The other obvious one is stress."

"No fevers, not recently," she says, shifting, then pressing the back of her hand to her forehead out of instinct. Warm, but not burning. Mild? No, it was just nerves. "And I have been pretty stressed, haven't really been getting a lot of sleep...."

"That could be the cause of your sleepwalking, the stress, the lack of sleep. A particularly bad migraine..." Edelgard trails off, the concern never quite departing her eyes. 

It both soothes and ruffles frayed nerves, eyes darting from Edelgard to the coat of arms hanging on the wall behind her desk then back. "So if I get more sleep and try and be less stressed I won't sleep walk again?"

"Those are steps to preventing it from happening again, yes."

She smiles slightly, wry and a little bitter. "If only it were that easy," she replies, scrubbing a hand down her face. "In this line of work stress is a close friend."

She half expects Edelgard to tell her to change professions, to tell her to maybe just focus on teaching instead of putting her mind in as much danger as she does. But she reminds herself that Edelgard isn't like the others. She certainly didn't encourage Byleth's habits, but she didn't argue with her about it either.

At least, not on the surface.

"It is, but that's why you have the people around you to help you," Edelgard says, fingers splayed. "I still think you should take steps to lessen your stress and try to get more sleep if anything. The headaches could easily be connected to both."

_'Working cases isn't good for you, I'd rather not see you out there at all.'_

"I'll try, but until we catch this guy I'm not sure if I can." Byleth smiles, twitchy, unsure, faintly laughing at herself. "Actually I haven't figured out how to relax fully a day in my life."

The last time she was able to say she was relaxed and happy was when she was a child, everything spiraled down from the moment she realized her 'gift.'

"Why do you say that?" Edelgard asks, touching a proverbial finger to the surface of Byleth's memories, gentle, and it leaves her the option of retreating.

Byleth doesn't. "Ever since I became aware of my 'empathy' It's made life complicated, I can't go into a room without noticing everything and everyone. I can't make eye contact without getting distracted by a burst vein or how tired they are or-" she cuts herself off, resting her face in her hands. "You get it."

Edelgard hums. "From an outsider's perspective, I do understand in a way."

In a way.

Byleth knows there's no way Edelgard could ever fully understand what it was like to drown in a room full of people, or be unable to meet someone's eyes for more than a few seconds without feeling like they were trying to crawl into her skull. But she understood enough, and that was all that really mattered.

She got why Byleth was so twitchy and anti-social.

"People are inherently oppressive," Edelgard says, tapping her fingers against the arm of her chair. "We all have our own opinions, views, and feelings, and, knowingly or not, we push them upon others. That's why no one can ever truly see eye to eye, because no matter how similar you may be to someone, there's always some part of you that won't fit."

Humanity was a puzzle with too many oddly shaped pieces, half-finished with the rest left strewn about in frustration. A single person might fall into place, but the collective whole never would.

But then there were people like her, the piece that could somehow fit everywhere but never really belong. 

"That's true," she whispers, looking down at her hands, and shifting in her seat. "But I can still understand everyone, even when I don't want to."

"Because people like you are special, and there's so very few of you," Edelgard replies, sitting forward and reaching out, palm up, fingers spread. "Like a rare bird."

"A rare bird kept in a cage, you mean," Byleth mutters, her bitterness at it all breaking off like charcoal on her tongue.

"A bird like you doesn't belong in a cage," Edelgard says, voice low. "You should be flying free."

Byleth looks up, meeting her eyes, searching her face for something that isn't there. 

"I don't know how."

\-----------

Catherine catches her as she's leaving her classroom, Galatea following in her wake. "Lysithea found the truck," she says as soon as she's within earshot. "It took her a bit because our guy is pretty good at avoiding street cameras, but we finally found it parked outside some workshop just outside Baltimore."

"We're not going to find him there," Byleth says, keeping pace alongside Catherine. "From what you said, we only found it because he wanted us to find it."

"He's leading us along to keep himself in the spotlight, huh." Catherine's expression twists. "And again we're forced to follow along because if we don't he'll just kill again."

"It'll eventually be his undoing," Ingrid says, looking between the two. "The more overconfident he gets, the more likely he is to mess up." 

"We thought that about Hegemon," Catherine rebukes, scowling. "And they're still at large."

"Hegemon is an entirely different type of killer," Byleth says, less than gently reminding them. "To compare them is like putting a Sparrow beside an Eagle and saying they're exactly the same because they're birds. Sure, they may both be birds, but that's where the comparison ends."

Hegemon was an intelligent psychopath, the sculptor was just a narcissist riding a high that was about to come crashing down like a house of cards.

The rest of the trip is in silence, Catherine focused on driving, Ingrid quietly talking on her phone and Byleth staring out the window.

The place is crawling with officers by the time they arrive, police and FBI alike searching the truck and the workshop. It's as much as Byleth had suspected as she steps out of the SUV and weaves between the fray of officers. 

There's no one there, the truck is abandoned, the power cut. She moves through, water from melted ice pooling across the floor and splashing against her shoes as she walks.

It's everything one would expect from an ice sculptor's workshop, a freezer, a dozen tools, places to work in and out of the cold. 

It's not as fancy as she imagined, taking in the grimy cement floors and cracked tile along the walls. 

_But it was my space. The place I created my greatest works of art._

_Now it's time for the final act._

"He's definitely going to go back to the Charleston," Byleth says, turning around to face the room at large. "And whatever he's got planned, it's going to be big and absolutely not something we want him to manage to accomplish." 

"Then take Dr. Hresvelg up on her offer," Catherine says, waving her out. "Finish scouring this place for any kind of evidence! DNA, hair fiber, I don't care, just find something!"  
Byleth leaves as everyone there gets to work in earnest, pulling her phone out from her pocket and scrolling to Edelgard's name on her contact list.

The Doctor answers on the second ring. " _Hello?_ "

"Remember that offer to get us into the Charleston you made?" She starts, waiting until Edelgard hums her acknowledgement. "I'm taking you up on it. Well, Catherine and I are both taking you up on it."

" _A table for three then?_ " Edelgard asks, papers shuffling in the background. " _When?_ "

"Tonight, it needs to be tonight. This guy is planning something big and probably stupid and everyone in the restaurant is going to be part of it." She paces slightly as she talks, unintentionally picking up on the anxiety all of the officers nearby feel. None of them know what's going to happen.

Just that it is.

" _One moment, please,_ " Edelgard says, as infuriatingly calm and polite as she always was. Byleth waits, because there's nothing else she can do, listening to the low hum of Edelgard's voice over the line as the Doctor makes another call she can't hear clearly.

She hears nothing but white noise coming from over the phone for a disturbingly long time before the receiver is shifted against fabric and Edelgard's voice filters through again. " _Done. I'll see you in an hour._ "

Byleth wastes no time in telling Catherine, everyone else works like a kicked hornet's nest.

Then Byleth waits.

\--------

Exactly an hour later, they're at the Charleston, people already slowly filing in for the night's dinner. "This is going to be a pain in the ass only going off a description," Catherine mutters, watching the crowd. "Especially with all these people."

"He'll want the attention," Byleth mutters, hands in her pockets, and head down. "So he's going to find a way to stand out, either by clothes or actions."

There are a dozen plainclothes officers milling about with them, listening to their radios and winding in to the restaurant under the guise of security. 

Exactly five minutes later of Catherine staring down at her watch and muttering, Edelgard steps up beside them looking like a bloodstained shadow. Deep red suit jacket and tie, black dress shirt and slacks and gloves. 

"My apologies," she says as she looks at them out of the corner of her eye. "I had an appointment run a bit late." She looks vaguely annoyed about it too, a tightness at the corners of her mouth. 

"It's alright," Catherine says, shrugging a shoulder. "Five minutes later is better than a lot of other people I know."

"I don't particularly enjoy being late for things," Edelgard replies, gesturing for them all to walk with her. "I pride myself on being punctual in all things."

 _Control_ , Byleth thinks, _is an important facet of the Doctor's life. Whether it be what she eats, how she looks, or her schedule, everything is immaculate and perfectly planned. And she doesn't enjoy interruptions or surprises...or being late._

She tacks it on to her mental cork-board of facts about the Doctor as they head inside, Edelgard speaking briefly to the hostess before they're escorted to their table and given menus. 

It becomes a waiting game, watching the crowd over ordered drinks and mindless conversation. Byleth knows he'll wait until the restaurant is at it's most crowded, when everyone's guard has dropped and they're all enjoying their meals. Then he'll strike, unveiling whatever it is he's planning.

It becomes a waiting game, scanning over their menus and deciding they might as well eat while they sit here and do nothing. It would add to the act of blending in, and Byleth is more than willing to jump for one of the seafood dishes. 

"My treat," Edelgard says, setting her menu down. "We might as well enjoy ourselves before the final performance, no?" She smiles and it's all sharp-edged humor and the barest hint of teeth. 

"Well, if you're paying," Catherine says, laughing slightly. "In all seriousness, though, thanks for helping us out, Doctor."

"It was the least I could do," Edelgard replies, sitting back to allow the waitress to refill her wine glass. "I have all this reach and influence with the Baltimore elite, I might as well use it for _something_." 

Something.

Like catching narcissistic killers bent on holding the public eye for as long as possible.

The conversation drifts back into the mundane after they order and Byleth finds herself settling on the quiet end of it, listening as Catherine and Edelgard go back and forth about everything from politics to sports, to Catherine's home life. She finds she really does enjoy the sound of Edelgard's voice and the way her accent causes her to roll certain words off her tongue. 

"I was born in Germany," Edelgard answers in response to one of Catherine's questions. "Berlin, to be exact, though I spent a great deal of my childhood in Austria."

It's all Catherine manages to get out of her, Edelgard smoothly changing the subject as soon as their meals are delivered. So the Doctor was as much of a private person as Byleth was, even if she seemed like the complete opposite. Charming and social and easily able to hold the attention of anyone talking to her.

But that was it, wasn't it, people talked _to_ her not the other way around. It's a return to that careful give of information, answering questions as literally as possible when it was about herself. She talked much more freely when it was about anything else.

"Is that him?" Edelgard says at one point, wine glass half lifted and eyes sharp, focused on a space over Byleth's shoulder. Both her and Catherine turn in unison, scanning the crowd until they both pick out the one man standing out among them. 

"Tall, red hair, bad fake tan," Catherine rattles off, eyebrows raising. "Wild outfit, yea, I'd say that was our guy." She pauses a moment, jaw flexing as she attempts to parse what she's looking at. "The hell is he wearing anyway?"

"Nothing," Edelgard replies, finishing the dregs of wine in her glass. "Boxers, perhaps, the rest is body-paint."

" _Well_..." Byleth says, exasperated. " _This_ escalated quickly."

There's a rush of alarm through the patrons as he weaves between tables, drawing attention to himself in every feasible way, by talking, dancing, waving his arms. He stops only when the room as gone silent and all eyes are settled on him, Catherine dipping her head long enough to alert all the officers on the premise to the disturbance.

"Wait here, Doctor," Catherine says, getting up slowly as he begins to talk. 

Byleth stands to follow, stopped only by the warmth of Edelgard's hand around her wrist. Her gloves are as soft as she imagined them to be, sliding like silk against her skin as she moves slightly to look down at the other woman. "Doctor Hresvelg?"

"You and I both know that there is more to this than anyone thinks," she says, fingers uncoiling from her wrist and dropping away.

Byleth pretends her skin doesn't tingle in the wake of the other's touch. "Do you think this is just some kind of distraction?"

"I think he has something else in the wings, and that there should be officers looking for it. I think this young gentleman has no intention of surviving this stunt of his and is fully prepared to die for shock value."

Nearby, Catherine says something into her radio, and Byleth assumes immediately she must have been listening in on their conversation. She imagines the officers outside entering from other areas and waving staff out of the way, asking them if they've seen anything odd. 

"Since you all enjoyed my last art project!" their killer is saying, arms spread, smile wide. "I decided I would give you all an encore." 

"No one here wants an encore, buddy," Catherine says, ready to go for her gun.

"How do you know?" The man says, lifting his arms a little higher. "You can't hope to understand the masses."

"Nope, I can't," Catherine replies. "But you can't really either, can you?"

"Please don't set him off," Byleth mutters under her breath, unsurprised that Edelgard had decided to follow her. She's smart about it, however, keeping behind her and out of the way.

"I see them talking, I hear them as I pass. They whisper me praises about how macabre my art is, how unique! So I must give them the best yet, artist must become art!" He lifts his hands up over his head, striking a pose that drains the whole room back into silence.

Nothing happens.

"Shock only lasts for so long," Edelgard says from behind her, voice carrying. "You may stun everyone here with your final performance, but if you snuff yourself out with it eventually everyone's memory of you and your art will fade. Sure, it will last for a few months, maybe even a few years, passed around by word of mouth and social media." 

Byleth stands aside slightly as the other woman steps more into view. "But eventually people will find something else to fixate on."

"No, I will make history with this. My name will be written in text books and passed down as one of the greatest performing criminals of our lifetime."  
Something crashes above them, loud and thundering and sending everyone in the room into an explosion of panic. 

Their suspect decides to run too, Catherine on his heels.

"Out front?" Byleth asks, glancing.

"It's where the biggest crowd will be."

\-------

Outside turns out to be as much of a clusterfuck as Byleth thought, people trying to get back to their cars, police trying to pick out a needle in a haystack. Byleth weaves through the sea of bodies with Edelgard at her back, the Doctor melding into her shadow as if she had always belonged there.

"Freeze!" She hears Catherine roar nearby, the two of them shoving out from the confines of the crowd to see them both. A dozen officers join them, guns all drawn, moving slowly to form a circle between him and the panicked crowd.

"There's nowhere else to go, buddy," Catherine says, inching forward slowly. "And it seems like your plan got ruined by whatever fell inside. So put your hands up again and get down on your knees, you're under arrest for murder...theft and I'm gonna tack harassment on there too."

Byleth exhales as soon as Catherine gets close enough to cuff him and nothing further happens, running her hands down her face. 

"He wanted to die for his art so he wouldn't have to live with the fact he'll fade back into obscurity while serving his prison sentence. He'll still get to enjoy the last of his fifteen minutes of fame, but that's all." Edelgard's smile is unpleasant, twisted in a way that makes her look almost like she's enjoying all this. 

"It truly is a terrible thing, to be so twisted and absorbed by fame."

Byleth hums her agreement.


	9. Moderato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Please, Byleth, you caught me in the middle of making mine. I made the choice to feed us both. May I come in?"_
> 
> _Suddenly she feels self-conscious, painfully aware this is the first time she's invited Edelgard over to her home. In the beginning, it had never even crossed her mind, perfectly content to meet the woman in her office or around the halls of the FBI or at crime scenes, never at her home._
> 
> _"Uh," she says, standing aside as Edelgard makes her way up the steps. She blinks when the Doctor stops in front of her, tilting her head to one side expectantly._
> 
> _Waiting._
> 
> _"Sure, yea, come in," she stutters, waving the other woman by her. "So-sorry about the mess, I... uh, I have a lot of cats."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again bless Flibety for the beta!

_She's running, stumbling, gasping, while the winter air cuts through her lungs like a thousand knives. The underbrush betrays her, tripping her up and whipping at her face and her arms. Run, she tells herself, run faster, run harder. Run, run, run, until you can't anymore._

_**RUN.** _

_Something follows behind her, steps slow and languid. A predator taking its time, waiting for it's prey to run expend all of it's energy and collapse. She risks a glance over her shoulder, catching sight of the hulking shadow behind her, crimson eyes blazing, horns crawling back along it's head and teeth glittering in the moonlight._

_She thinks she screams, high and thready and sobbing, scrambling away faster than she's ever run before. She pushes herself faster, harder, heedless of the rocks cutting into her feet. She hits a tree, hands slapping at the bark as she redirects herself, then another._

_The second impact sends her reeling, floundering helplessly to keep her balance._

_She ends up in the dirt, the leaves cold and stinging on her cut hands. Behind her the monster looms, shadow stretching over her as it closes in, claws closing around her head--_

_Twisting, crushing--_

She wakes to nothing but trees in every direction, the frozen ground merciless on her bare feet and palms. She blinks back into awareness with the flight of crows, a dozen of them exploding from the trees and taking to the sky, cries echoing through the gray light of the early morning.

"Again," she whispers, shivering. "I know I locked the door this time." 

_Little good that did,_ she thinks as she rises up to her feet, looking down at the mud staining her skin. It adds to the chill creeping in and settling in her bones, once again numbing her toes and her fingertips as she starts to trudge back to her house, anxiety welling in her with each step.

She wonders how far she got, wonders if her cats had escaped and where they were now. None of them had ever been beyond the porch and never without her there to watch and make sure they didn't wander. She panics for them to avoid panicking about herself, stumbling blindly through the woods on cold feet and with burning lungs.

Byleth knew these woods, knew every trail and every path, knew how far it was to the river that ran through the middle of it. But right now, everything felt alien, stained gray and red, shadows still crawling across the ground as the sun slowly rose with the intent to burn them away. It didn't feel like home, didn't feel familiar. It felt as though her space had been invaded and all the trees had been moved around while she wasn't looking.

The sun has broken the horizon by the time she stumbles out of the tree line, shivering hard and thankful it wasn't in the dead of winter. Fall was dangerous enough, but she knew come winter she couldn't keep wandering out of her house or she would really freeze to death before she even woke up. 

Her cats all sit out on the porch, huddled together and watching as she trudges across the lawn and up towards the house. "You all waited, huh?" she rasps, relief overtaking her. "Good kitties, okay, back inside now. It's chilly out here." 

Slowly she steps through them and heads up the steps, back into the warmth of her little house. The cats all take their time to finally file back inside like last time, meowing and murring at her as they pass. She allows herself to crumble as soon as she shuts the door, leaning heavily against it and pressing her muddied hands to her face. The anxiety coils, filling her up and aggravating the headache already beginning to pound behind her eyes.

"What's wrong with me?" she mutters, sinking down to the floor and sitting there, knees drawn to her chest. "None of this makes any damn sense...." 

So she calls the one person who might be able to make sense of it, because she knew sitting on the floor feeling sorry for herself wasn't going to help in the long run. It wasn't going to cut it anymore when she felt as though she was drifting away from her normal, that whatever had been building up over the years was finally opening it's maw with the intent to drag her down with it.

\-------

She's in considerably better shape by the time Edelgard arrives, showered and dressed for the day, sitting out on her porch curled up in her coat. She watches the Aston Martin as it rolls over the gravel and dirt leading up to her house, slowing to a stop behind her car. She stands as soon as the driver's side door opens, then pauses in her tracks at the sight of the Doctor.

Edelgard looks sinfully casual in the early mornings, dressed down in black slacks and a deep green turtleneck, hair tied back in a short ponytail. Byleth feels like an idiot for staring, watching as the other woman leans back into her car to get what looks like a thermos of coffee and a plastic container of food.

"You brought me breakfast?" Byleth asks when the other woman closes in on the porch, looking down at what the Doctor holds in her gloved hands. "You didn't have to-"

"Please, Byleth, you caught me in the middle of making mine. I made the choice to feed us both. May I come in?"

Suddenly she feels self-conscious, painfully aware this is the first time she's invited Edelgard over to her home. In the beginning, it had never even crossed her mind, perfectly content to meet the woman in her office or around the halls of the FBI or at crime scenes, never at her home.

"Uh," she says, standing aside as Edelgard makes her way up the steps. She blinks when the Doctor stops in front of her, tilting her head to one side expectantly. 

Waiting.

"Sure, yea, come in," she stutters, waving the other woman by her. "So-sorry about the mess, I... uh, I have a lot of cats." 

Edelgard smiles. "No need to worry," she says, heading inside. "I'm rather fond of cats."

_That_ , Byleth thinks as she follows the Doctor inside, shutting the door behind her, _Is a really big point in her favor._

"Where's your kitchen?" Edelgard asks, looking both entirely out of place and entirely at home all at once. A handsome painting stuck on a wall in a storehouse. "Byleth?"

Byleth startles, blinking her way out of her stupor. "That way," she says, pointing. "Down the hall a little, to your left." She watches as the other woman disappears through the doorway into the kitchen, a few cats following in the stranger's wake.

She follows, pausing to watch as Edelgard so easily makes herself at home. She moves from one end of the kitchen to the other, finding dishes and cups and silverware with a few cursory glances. 

"I'm sorry, but this isn't for you," Edelgard murmurs, extending her hand out to one of the cats daring enough to get close. He sniffs her fingers, then butts his head against her palm until she pats him, rubbing her fingers against the backs of his ears.

"His name is 'Aspen,'" she says as she finally enters the kitchen, settling onto one of the stools at the center island. "He's always excited to meet new people, and you even brought food so of course he's going to love you."

"Aspen," Edelgard parrots, scratching under his chin. "Like the Aspen tree? It's fitting, given the white color of his fur."

"Ah, yea. I named almost all my cats after trees. I adopted most of them from a shelter, but I found my first one out in the woods..." she shifts, gesturing quietly to the calico sitting on the floor by the island. "This one here, I found her out by the river where I go fishing. She was sleeping under a Willow Tree so..."

"So you named her 'Willow'," Edelgard finishes, looking down at the cat.

"Yup. The gray one is Ash, the black one is Hemlock, the orange one is Hawthorne and the tuxedo is Hickory. Arthur is the odd one out, I got him from a friend. He's afraid of strangers though, so you probably won't see him." She smiles shakily and sits quietly picking at the dead skin on the edges of her nails. She's putting off talking about exactly why she called the other woman here, burying herself in a foundation of comfortable conversation topics and tip toeing around the real issue.

Edelgard seems content to humor her, smoothly going about plating their freshly warmed food and pouring still warm coffee. The plates clink down with a certain finality that sticks awkwardly in Byleth's chest as Edelgard slides into the stool across the island from her. Aspen does his best to slink in and try to steal something off one of their plates, but the Doctor catches him and gently sets him down on the floor with a quiet remark.

"So," Edelgard starts, spearing a forkful of scrambled eggs, meat, and vegetables, her eyes somewhere between Byleth and the plate. "What happened? You sounded incredibly distressed when you called me earlier."

"I had a really...jarring nightmare," she says, picking up her fork and pushing her own food around on her plate. "I woke up in the woods...like...deep in the woods. I was covered in mud and cold and,well, it freaked me out.Waking up on my porch was one thing, but-"

"Waking up in the woods is more concerning to you," Edelgard says, setting her fork down. "Especially as we draw closer to winter. You may have to make more changes to your lifestyle in an attempt to combat it."

Byleth eats, chewing slowly, thinking over everything she could possibly change. What she could possibly do differently to stop from hurting herself...or worse.

"Have you lost time again?" Edelgard asks, taking a slow sip of coffee.

"No, no lost time, and no, no fever. I did have a headache for a bit this morning...and it was pretty miserable, but I took some Excedrin and knocked it out. Do you think...there's more to the sleep walking than just stress and sleep deprivation?" She doesn't even remotely want to finally admit it to herself, that maybe she was right and there was something else wrong...

_There are teeth in the back of her neck--_

"We can't rule it out, can we?" Edelgard's smile is soft, a mere ghost of a thing that lasts for only a moment before it was gone, her eyes lowering back to her plate. "We'll proceed at your pace, I'm not forcing you to do anything you don't wish to, or aren't ready to, do. I'm just letting you know my concerns."

It wasn't like she could either way, but knowing Edelgard wasn't going to pressure her into anything was yet another point in the woman's favor.

"Okay...I'm going to try a bit more to stop my sleep walking, but if I keep waking up in odd places too many more times, I'll make an appointment with a Doctor and see. I'm just..." She trails off, pushing her food around on her plate more, suddenly not hungry despite wanting to finish.

"You're scared of what might happen," Edelgard fills in, reaching across the space to lay her hand against her forearm. "It's perfectly fine to be afraid, but don't let it keep you from not acting. And know, no matter what I'll be here to help you through."

Edelgard's hand is so warm where it rests perfectly still, gloves as soft as the last time they were on her skin. 

"Okay," Byleth whispers, exhaling slowly. "Okay."

_I'll always be in your corner, Byleth-_

"Now, finish eating," Edelgard murmurs, an amused edge curling through her accent. "Wouldn't want to go through the day hungry."

The absurdity of it makes her laugh.

But she eats, and the conversation fades into a comfortable silence.

Her phone rings as they're finishing up the last bits of food and coffee, and Byleth's eyes dip to it, an eyebrow raising at the sight of Catherine's name on the ID. "I guess we have another murder," she mutters, reaching for it. "You can just leave the dishes in the sink; I'll do them later."

Edelgard gives her a weird look as she collects the plates, like she had asked her to do something particularly strange and out of place. Byleth doesn't question it, simply picking up her phone and watching the Doctor's back as she sets the plates in the sink and turns the water on.

"Hello?" She says, turning away just as the other woman takes her gloves off to tend to the dishes.

" _I have a strange one today_ ," Catherine starts without preamble, paper shuffling slightly in the background. " _An inmate housed in the BSHCI killed an orderly who was allegedly abusing patients._ " 

Byleth raises an eyebrow, a new level of discomfort settling in her stomach. "Oh, but what does this have to do with us? Can't their internal security or the police handle it?" She hated places like that, always afraid if she went, they'd never let her back out.

" _Normally, yea, but what caught my attention is this inmate is apparently claiming to be_ Hegemon."

The rush of suspicion is immediate. "Hegemon? That's...not possible. It can't be." It didn't matter that Hegemon had been quiet for a long period, that no new bodies had been dropped on their doorstep with a proclamation of justice.

" _It lines up, Byleth_ ," Catherine says, giving voice to her thoughts. " _Hegemon has been awful quiet since Cowl, and according to the head of the Hospital this patient got brought in shortly after Cowl's murder._ "

When she glances back Edelgard is watching her, hands wound in the dishtowel and an eyebrow raised. She looks almost...annoyed or offended and Byleth can't place why.

"Yea but they could just as easily be laying low, since they know the FBI is hunting for them. Hegemon wouldn't be caught so easily, not after evading arrest and even identification for so long." At the same time...she can't deny her curiosity.

" _Hm. You're right, I can't argue there, I think it's worth at least taking a look. I told the hospital administrator we'd be by and not to touch the crime scene, so I hope you're ready_." She hears Catherine moving, hears her keys jingling as she heads out of her office. "I'll meet you there."

Byleth meets Edelgard's eyes, fixating on the quiet darkness that lurks just under the surface. "Sure. I'll see you there." She hangs the phone up, setting it down on the island again. "This day just got weirder."

"So I heard, at least in part," Edelgard says, turning away. "Someone is claiming to be Hegemon, hm? First the Conductor writing letters of idolization and now this." 

"I'm not looking forward to this trip," Byleth mutters, watching the way Edelgard smooths her gloves out against her hands. "Going to that place makes me...really uncomfortable."

"The BSHCI? You have no need to worry, they can't keep you."

"Maybe not, but...sometimes I think they might find a reason someday," she replies, smiling wrily. "Doctor?" She waits until Edelgard is looking at her again, head tilted slightly to one side. "Do...you want to come along? Both of us have some kind of interest in Hegemon...Oh, wait never mind you probably have appointments..."

"Not until the afternoon," Edelgard says, one hand resting on top of a now-empty thermos. "I admit, I am curious." She considers, fingers tapping against the polished metal. "Very well, I'll accompany you."

It's a relief in more ways than one, knowing both Catherine and Edelgard would be there with her.

Byleth stands as Edelgard finishes collecting her things, both of them nearly colliding in the small space the kitchen offers. "Uh, sorry-" she says, freezing up when she realizes just how close they are now, close enough to touch, close enough to-

She moves out of the way, staring up over the other woman's head as embarrassment burns in her cheeks. 

Edelgard has the audacity to chuckle.

\-----

The Baltimore State Hospital For The Criminally Insane looms as it always does as they pull up to the curb, Byleth having decided it would be easier to hitch a ride with Edelgard even if it would leave her relying on Catherine for a ride later. She didn't trust herself behind the wheel right now, so the minor inconvenience of it all was pushed to the back of her mind.

Catherine waits at the top of the steps for them with an older man, hunched a bit and wringing his hands nervously. Byleth immediately doesn't like him, but she exchanges greetings and coolly deflects any questions asked.

"Didn't expect to see you, Doctor Hresvelg," Catherine says after the man, Solon Archibald, turns to lead them inside. "I think this is the first time I've seen you so casual too." She takes only a brief look at the chosen outfit the other woman wears, accompanied now by the black trench coat she had pulled on before they left.

"I had an emergency this morning," Edelgard says, smoothly avoiding explaining fully. "I didn't have time to spend on getting ready like I usually do."

Byleth is almost sure Catherine figures out that it had something to do with her, given the evidence, but she doesn't ask. Instead, she shrugs and turns to follow Dr. Archibald who now waits for them by one of the many security doors. 

She shudders once, tucking herself into her coat as she follows behind Edelgard.

"I didn't expect to see the great Doctor Hresvelg either," Archibald says as they make their way down one hall after another, the buzz of each door rattling in the confines of her skull. She hates the feeling of the place. Hates they way everyone's mind presses against her own, each person they pass reaching out and brushing against the walls she has put up. 

Archibald is still talking and beside her, Edelgard wears a thin smile that barely passes for pleasant. They know each other, she can gather, but it's clear Edelgard's opinion of him isn't entirely high. Yet she tolerates him because they're in the same circle. Because he might be useful.

"Here we are. As you asked, I didn't touch anything. I must admit, I'm fascinated to see how your mind works, Agent Eisner, you're the talk of the psychology world." Archibald's smile is exactly the kind of smile she expects from a person like him, pleasant and arrogant all at once. 

Something ugly settles in her chest at that, and she struggles to keep the scowl itching at the edges of her face from showing beyond a faint grimace. "Talk of the psychology world, huh?" She knows for a fact everyone she was close to, who had seen her abilities wouldn't be going about gossiping.

"People often wonder how it is you track down killers," Edelgard offers, focusing on her. "They see articles in the paper and online or hear about it on TV. You always catch your man, which...to most, makes you look like a sort of miracle worker."

"I'm just...good at my job," she replies, shrugging. She doesn't like the idea of Archibald trying to poke around in her head, and she knew just from the way he watched her he wanted nothing more than to do just that. 

She already had enough people doing that.

"Which, I'd like to get to," she mutters, slipping by them and heading into the room they had been brought to. The infirmary she notes, a few gurneys, some machines, and several IV stands. The victim sits atop one of the gurneys, perfectly posed, dead eye staring vacantly right at where she stands. 

Needles and scalpels stand starkly out of the man in small clusters, his jaw severed from his head to leave his tongue lolling freely out against his chest. Byleth blinks, and behind she hears Edelgard moving, the other woman's steps nearly silent compared to Catherine's. 

"Alright, Doctor Archibald, let's leave Agent Eisner alone to do her work, eh?" Catherine says from the doorway, and Byleth glances back just in time to watch as Catherine herds him out with a grimace.

The door shuts firmly behind them.

She turns back to the body, focusing on the remnants of the killer's mind that still remain. There's frustration, there's fear. 

_Three steps back and she's in the room with the orderly, hands cuffed in front of her. She knows what he's done to people, has heard it through the grapevine from other orderlies or from patients whispering about it before a guard called for silence. She knows she's next. He expects a well-behaved patient, someone docile thanks to the tranquilizers he had put in her food that morning._

_But she hadn't eaten it all. The pills and the food flushed down the cell toilet and left to rot in the pipes somewhere._

_She acts how he expects, listless and tired, complaining mildly that she didn't feel well and couldn't understand why. He assures her the nurse would be there soon, assures her that she'll be safe with him and that there was nothing to worry about._

_Bullshit, she thinks, narrowing her eyes as soon as he turns. I'm no safer with you than I am with anyone in this damn place._

_Fear. Confusion. Rage._

_She goes for the pen he leaves on the counter as he talks, slipping it into her sleeve. She waits until he turns back to her, waits until he's placed his hands on her cheeks to assure her again before she stabs him in the eye, shoving the pen in as far as she can get it while he screams, clawing at her hands, trying to shove her off. She doesn't relent, shoving, using his panicked attempt to escape to throw him off balance and send them both to the floor._

_"This is for all the people you abused," she whispers, wrapping the chain of her cuffs around his throat. "For all the people who cried themselves to sleep after dealing with you." She pulls, knee shoved into his back. She pulls until he stops struggling, pulls until she's sure he's stopped breathing._

_And then she gets to work._

_"This is justice."_

Her hands ghost nearly against the ruined jaw of the dead man when she blinks back to the present, the sudden proximity and fear of it launching her back several stumbling steps until she hits the solid presence of another person.

"Easy," Edelgard murmurs, hands on her back. "You need to breathe." 

Inhale. Exhale.

Her heart hammers too fast, blood rushing in her ears. The anxiety from the morning wells back, claws sinking into her lungs and sitting like a weight on her chest. She breathes too fast, clinging to the arm Edelgard wraps across her collarbones. "I can't--" she whispers, panic seizing her. "Doctor--"

"Agent Nevrand!"

\---------

She comes back to herself sitting on the steps of the hospital, head in her hands, Edelgard's shoes visible between her fingers. The other woman is talking to her, murmuring in German for a reason she's not sure of at first. Then she realizes, it's something to focus on, something that would confuse her mind and distract her from the panic slowly starting to lose its hold on her. 

Like sucking on an ice cube.

"Are you back with us, Byleth?"

Slowly she looks up, swallowing once and nodding. "Yea...sorry I don't..."

"You had a panic attack," Edelgard says, hand heavy on her shoulder. "It was likely caused by the strain of your recreation resting atop your initial dread about coming to this place."

Byleth shakes her head, waving a hand slightly. "I'm--It's fine, despite what I said I wanted to come and see what happened. I had to know. I guess I just paid the price for it right there. I'm okay now..." she trails off, once again drawn to meet the violet of Edelgard's eyes. "Thank you..."

The other woman smiles faintly, then rises slowly up to her feet. 

"It's not Hegemon," she says, looking up at Edelgard. "I mean, there are similarities...but...there's something unsure and fearful about this killer. They made a claim, sure but...I don't think they believe it?" She stands, turning to look back up at the building looming over them. "Something is weird about this."

"Doctor Archibald is absolutely _convinced_ he has Hegemon here in his hospital," Edelgard says, coming to stand on the step beside her. "Catherine went with him to go speak to the woman whose responsible, we have permission to go down if you wish to, if not just tell me where you would like to go."

_Home_ , Byleth thinks. But at the same time, she wanted to be anywhere else, suddenly terribly afraid of being alone. "I want to go down," she says, deciding. "I want to see this woman who claims to be Hegemon."

Edelgard nods once, then steps by her, flagging down the guard standing by the door.

_Take two_ , Byleth thinks as they make their way back down the path they had previously taken, past the room where a few officers now stand, then down. She can hear Catherine's voice long before they actually catch sight of the woman, standing a few feet from the cell, arms crossed.

She notices them as they approach, something like surprise crossing her features at the sight of them. "You good, Eisner?" she asks as Byleth stops beside her, head tilting to the side slightly.

"Yea," she replies, turning to face the woman in the cell. She's pretty, Byleth thinks, with mint green hair and matching eyes, but she looks tired, hollowed out. "What made you decide to make the claim you did?" she asks, abruptly. 

She doesn't even know this woman's name.

Behind them, Edelgard lingers, observing.


	10. Allegretto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I don't think you are," Byleth replies, staring at a spot just underneath her chin. "What you did was just, yes. You killed an abuser, but Hegemon wouldn't allow themself to get caught. Not while there's still injustice in the world." She meets those eyes briefly, a flicker quick shift before she was looking away again. For a moment she looks away completely, glancing back behind her to where Edelgard leans against the wall, watching Solon rather than anything else._
> 
> _She looks darkly amused, like she's picked up on the punchline of a joke before the rest of them. It makes her wonder what the other woman realized, and she frowns, catching Catherine's eye as she turns back to face the woman in the cell._
> 
> _"You can't prove either way, can you?" The woman asks, leaning her forehead against the bars. "There's no evidence to say I am, and no evidence to say I'm not."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally gotta update the tags, y'all.

The woman in the cell says nothing at first, her silence filled by the carried voices of other patients, of guards on patrol and orderlies pushing carts along other hallways. Byleth wonders if she's assessing her, gauging if she was worth the time it would take to explain. She also wonders if maybe the other woman was waiting them out, thinking that no matter what she said it wouldn't help her case. It was clear everyone already knew what she had done, clear that she was here for a similar reason.

"Why not? What I did was just, is it not proof enough of who I am?" The woman leans forward as she speaks, hands curling around the bars, acidic green eyes fixing on her. Byleth does her best not to meet them, her skin crawling underneath the way she watches. "I am Hegemon."

"I don't think you are," Byleth replies, staring at a spot just underneath her chin. "What you did was just, yes. You killed an abuser, but Hegemon wouldn't allow themself to get caught. Not while there's still injustice in the world." She meets those eyes briefly, a flicker quick shift before she was looking away again. For a moment she looks away completely, glancing back behind her to where Edelgard leans against the wall, watching Solon rather than anything else.

She looks darkly amused, like she's picked up on the punchline of a joke before the rest of them. It makes her wonder what the other woman realized, and she frowns, catching Catherine's eye as she turns back to face the woman in the cell.

"You can't prove either way, can you?" The woman asks, leaning her forehead against the bars. "There's no evidence to say I am, and no evidence to say I'm not."

"What got you caught, then?" Byleth asks, crossing her arms. "And why make it worse for yourself by killing someone here?" It just...doesn't add up. The equation in her mind becoming skewed every time she attempts to put all the pieces she has together.

One plus six didn't equal fifteen.

"I killed a man for abusing my niece," the woman says, sliding her arms between the bars, easily making herself comfortable. "Strung him up and left him to bleed out like the pig he was." Slowly she starts to tap her finger against the metal. "Apparently, I didn't clean up as well as I thought I did, the police traced it back to me."

Strike.

"Hegemon doesn't make mistakes like that, that's what makes them so hard to even begin to pin down. There's never any evidence, no blood at the scenes. If Hegemon were to murder someone for harming family, no one would know it was them." If, If, If.

Did Hegemon even have any family? If so where were they, what were they like?

"You're awful knowledgeable about Hegemon, Agent Eisner," Solon says, suddenly too damn close. "But it doesn't take away from the fact that Rhea has a lot of the tells of that killer, a strong sense of justice, a dislike of terrible people."

"I know a lot about Hegemon because I've been chasing them for a long time, I made it my life's goal to catch them and put them behind bars." It's the wrong thing to say, the wrong way to phrase it, and the look Solon gives her tells her everything he thinks about her without him even having to open her mouth. 

"So the fact that someone else may have caught her bothers you that much?" He presses, leaning close enough Byleth backs away on instinct, discomfort coiling ugly and bitter in her chest. 

"No," she replies, sharp, staring hard at his shoulder. "What bothers me is that if you end up being wrong after you've made that claim..." She pauses, the realization hitting her like a sledgehammer. If he did end up being wrong, Hegemon would retaliate. They would come out of the woodwork to kill again, to prove to the world that they were still out there. 

If he was wrong and made that claim.

Maybe, just maybe they could use that to catch them.

"I guess you're right though," Byleth says, turning her head away. "I can't prove either way. But what I can prove is that you have a problem with orderlies abusing your patients, don't you? That's pretty neglectful." It's spiteful, she knows it's spiteful, but right now she doesn't care.

"I-it was just him; I knew he was a problem and I was moving to get rid of him," Solon stutters, reeling backwards. "I take pride in keeping my patients safe! This is a place of healing for them."

Rhea, as Byleth now knows her name as, snorts derisively, drawing everyone's attention to her. "That's the funniest thing I've heard all week," she says. 

It sets Catherine off.

"You know, she's got a point. Was it just him?" Catherine asks, glancing at Rhea where she still sits, now looking far more amused then anyone in a jail cell should. "Or are there others?" In truth it really had nothing to do with them, they had come to investigate the claim Rhea had made, and now unintentionally uncovered this.

They couldn't really do anything themselves, but Catherine for sure would find someone who could. After all, they couldn't just leave this alone. That, in and of itself, was it's own injustice.

"No one as vulgar as the man I killed," Rhea says, leaning back finally, slipping away from the bars to retreat back to the bed. "But the patients talk in their own ways, you can hear them cry at night, sometimes you hear them beg. They don't often speak up, especially in the face of an authority they know won't care."

And that, doesn't help Solon's case. 

"You're just making claims!" Solon says, rounding on her. "These people here, not all of them are as lucid as you, Rhea. Some are very, very sick and don't always know where they are or when they are. They remember past trauma and relive it."

"Recalling trauma is usually brought on by a trigger of some sort," Edelgard says suddenly, still so casually leaned against the wall. "Similar situations, similar words...there's all sorts of things." She shrugs as Solon rounds on her then smiles.

Daring.

Wisely, he doesn't take the bait.

"I think it's time you look into what your staff is doing a little more closely, Dr. Archibald," Catherine says, looming over him. "Before someone else does."

It's as much threat as it is a promise.

Solon is properly chastised by the time they leave, wringing his hands, refusing to look any of them in the eye, leaving them with a promise that he will look into things more and that they're welcome to come back to speak to Rhea if they want to further their study on Hegemon.

Byleth isn't sure any of them will take it, but she knows for a fact Catherine has stored the idea somewhere in the back of her mind. Likely for a similar reason Byleth has, even if she wasn't Hegemon, they may be able to ask Rhea to help them try and better understand them.

"I'm going to make some calls," Catherine says once they reach their cars, standing well out of earshot of anyone who could possibly come or go. "I'm pretty sure Dr. Archibald isn't going to look into shit if it took someone dying for him to bother to pay attention..."

"He's a man very focused on his own studies," Edelgard says, splaying a hand. "So much so that even if it had been brought up to him, either by a patient or a nurse, he likely forgot about it before he decided to do something about it."

"Do you think he's abusing patients himself?" Catherine asks, side-eyeing her.

Edelgard chuckles, shaking her head. "No, not at all. But he's likely not very careful about the sort of staff he hires, which leads to patients being taken advantage of."

"Yea," Catherine mutters, sighing. "I know someone who'll _love_ this."

There's a brief moment where Byleth isn't sure what do to, watching as Edelgard turns to head back to her car as Catherine pulls out her phone and looks at her curiously. She isn't sure who she should go with, opening her mouth to say something before shutting it again, looking over her shoulder to find Edelgard watching her, driver's side door open.

"I'll go in with Catherine," she says after another moment of deliberation. "It gives you some time to go home and actually get ready for the day." She speaks like there isn't a part of her screaming at her to go, to see if she can peel back another layer of the good Doctor and dig a little deeper. 

So much for not being interested, she thinks, smiling slightly as Edelgard nods and slips behind the wheel of her car again. She turns away as the engine rumbles to life, crossing over to the passenger's side door of Catherine's SUV, climbing inside. She sits while Catherine talks to whoever it is she had called, listening as the other woman explains, debating briefly before finally hanging up.

"There," she mutters as she sets her phone down on the center console. "That's taken care of, I guess we'll see by proxy how deep this rabbit hole goes. I wonder how many staffers are as bad as the one Rhea killed."

"I'd say try to be optimistic, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be more than we expected." It always is. Corruption like that runs deep, taking root within the heart and refusing to be pulled out all at once.

"Our victim was likely just one of the worst."

"The squeaky wheel gets the oil?" Catherine says, starting the car. "Or the scalpel in this case."

Byleth snorts, glancing at the woman beside her. "Yea, pretty much."

It was going to be tough to focus on her classes today, too much spinning around in her mind.

\--------

_There's a clearing through the trees and she wanders through it slowly, steps labored thanks to all the snow on the ground. It crawls up to her knees, soaking in through her pants regardless of the layers she wears. She doesn't remember why she came out here, doesn't know where here is, just that she knows she has a reason._

_A lone tree stands in the center of the clearing, moonlight glinting off the ice coating it's branches. The winter has been vicious this year, she thinks, distantly aware there's something wrong about it._

_She didn't remember the first snow; didn't even remember what month it was anymore as she wanders deeper into the clearing and towards the tree._   
_Behind her, she drags something, fingers numb and arm straining as she pulls it along._

_"There you are," she whispers, looking up through the branches to the body that hangs among them, swaying faintly. "The snow made it hard for me to get out here," she adds, tilting her head, smiling up as dead eyes finally settle on her, the bodies' lips blue and subtly parted._

_"I brought you a friend," she says, looking back at the corpse she drags behind her on a sled. "Fortunately, it's going to snow soon, so I won't have to worry about clean up..."_

_A hand lays against her chest, warm and present, voice filtering through the chill. She turns with it, blinking into the empty space in front of her, trunk stained dark with blood._

**_'Byleth.'_ **

She inhales, startling out of her dream with an intent to swing before she realizes who it is. Edelgard stands at the bottom of the steps to her porch, gloved hand pressed to her chest, expression entirely neutral despite the threat of Byleth's raised hand. 

"Doctor-" Byleth rasps, blinking owlishly at the sight of her. She doesn't understand why the other woman is even here right now and she registers the sight of her, turtleneck, and jeans, and a leather coat that likely cost more than Byleth's house. Her hair is still tied back in a style similar to the last time she saw her. "What-?" the rest of her question dies in her throat, and she swallows the words down to try again. "What are you doing here?"

Edelgard tilts her head faintly to one side, an eyebrow raising. "You texted me," she says, pulling her phone out of her jacket pocket. "You told me you were afraid you'd wander into the woods again, and begged me to come make sure you didn't. Fortunately for you, I arrived just as you were walking out of your house again." She holds up the phone for good measure, the light from it illuminating the darkness between them. 

She sees her name, her number, and the words she typed, disorientated and full of errors she normally wouldn't make. Except she doesn't remember typing them, aware that she had put her phone down right before she went to bed, leaving it laying on the nightstand where she swears it still was.

"I don't...remember sending this to you," she whispers, suddenly very afraid. "I just remember putting my phone down and laying down." The guilt floods in a moment later, eyes searching what she can see of Edelgard's face. She looks unphased by the current situation and the likely ungodly hour, expression unreadable. 

There's nothing there in her eyes, no worry, no anger, just a void with a depth Byleth finds impossible to measure.

"I'm so sorry Doctor Hresvelg, I-" she touches a hand to her face, berating herself internally.

"Byleth," Edelgard says, drawing her attention again. And there she sees the concern, a smile subtly making itself known at the corners of her mouth. "It's fine, honestly, you needn’t hesitate to call on me whenever you need me."

She feels as though they've had this conversation before in a dozen different ways and she knows they'll have it a dozen more times. "It's so late though and you have patients to see-"

Edelgard silences her with a gesture, fingers shifting across the air and head shaking slightly. "I'm used to late nights," she says, slipping her hands in her pockets. "It's part of being a consultant."

Byleth gives her that, slouching slightly and nodding. "Do you want to come in? I mean you don't have to, I imagine you probably want to go home..."

"For a few minutes," Edelgard says, walking up the steps until the two of them were both standing on the top step, shoulders brushing.

"I probably shouldn't offer you a drink," Byleth says, stepping away to open the door and go inside, holding it open until Edelgard's hand rests against it and the other woman steps in. "Since you have to drive back and all that, but I sure need one." 

A few of the cats watch, woken from their sleep on the couch, wondering why this stranger was here again. Wondering if maybe it was time for food. "It's three-thirty in the morning," Byleth mutters as she passes them, Edelgard following in her wake. "You have a few hours to wait."

God did she want to just go back to sleep.

Maybe the whiskey would help.

"What were you dreaming about?" Edelgard asks as Byleth is rummaging around the kitchen for a few glasses, setting the bottle of alcohol down on the island counter. 

"I was...hanging a body?" she says, holding one glass up in silent offer. Edelgard considers it a moment, a strange look filtering across her features a moment before she nods. It was like a piece of the Doctor disconnected from the general world at large, or another shifted in to place.

_She must be tired._

"The hanged man can be a reference to tarot cards," Edelgard comments, sitting down on one of the stools. "Or a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus in Christian religion." She leans her head on her hand, a single finger tapping against the edge of one cheekbone. 

"It wasn't anything so fancy," Byleth says, pouring them each a glass. "But it felt like I knew the guy," she adds, frowning. "And there was a second body I had brought along in the dream, a friend of his?" 

Edelgard watches her over the rim of her glass, taking a small sip. She can't read the look in her eyes, and she feels as though there's something entirely different sitting in the skin of the other woman across from her. Large and dangerous and assessing.

_Friend or Foe?_

"Perhaps all this death is getting to you," Edelgard says, setting her glass down. "All the killers who reside in locked corners of your mind have begun to sneak out, making you dream of your own scenes." 

Byleth stares down at her cup, pursing her lips. "That's the scary part," she says, downing the whiskey, relishing in the burn as it goes. "It's getting harder to pull myself away while at the same time it's getting harder for me to look because I'm afraid I won't come back."

It happened with Rhea's scene, how close she had gotten to nearly touching the body and tampering with evidence. 

"Perhaps you need a break," Edelgard says, low and soothing. "Some time to disengage from things and clear your mind of all the shadows inhabiting the corners. There's no room in there for things you love right now."

Byleth blinks, sitting back slightly to consider. "Maybe, my thoughts as of late haven't been...pleasant. I've never really had good dreams, but these have been incredibly graphic...appalling, even."  
Concerning to the point where she was wondering if she was finally starting to lose her grip on reality. 

"Are you afraid you may do something during one of your sleepwalking bouts?" Edelgard asks, draining the rest of her glass and quietly refusing another. Byleth hasn't bothered to keep track of how many times she's drained and refilled her own.

At least one of them is being careful, but only one of them has to drive.

"Sometimes," she replies, going for honesty again. "I never know what I'm doing while I'm dreaming besides wandering. I don't know if I'm talking or if I have any intent. Apparently I can sleep text, so..." she gestures, draining her glass again.

"So you're afraid that instead of waking up somewhere in your woods, you'll wake up somewhere completely unfamiliar, unaware of what your unconscious self had done." 

"Yea, basically," Byleth agrees, tapping her nail against the glass. "The more I think about it the more that becomes a concern. Especially if I keep having dreams like I did tonight." Things unrelated to crime scenes or the criminals who committed them. She resolves to make that appointment finally.

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, Edelgard's eyes slipping closed as Byleth finishes her next glass, a warm haze settling over her and sinking into her bones. She stops with the next glass, setting the cap back on the bottle and standing carefully to put it all away. Edelgard moves with her, picking up her glass and slipping by her to the sink.

She watches as the other woman rinses the glass out, careful to not get any water on her gloves as she does. She studies her face from so close by, turning slightly to face her after she puts the bottle back where it needs to be and adds her glass to the sink. 

The action catches Edelgard's attention and the other woman glances over at her, an eyebrow raising in quiet question. There's no jest with it like last time, just a silence that weighs on her shoulders. She knows it's the alcohol that allows her to move closer, leaning her forearm against the counter in front of the sink, settling right underneath where Edelgard's hands still rest against the edges.

They're close enough for Byleth to do something really stupid if she wants to, her eyes meeting Edelgard's.

She knows she shouldn't but a part of her wants to, wants to just lean in enough to see what Edelgard's lips taste like. Later she'd blame the whiskey and her exhaustion making her do stupid things, but right now she wasn't thinking about the consequences, only wanting to lean in even closer when Edelgard chooses not to stop her, the other woman's violet eyes dark.

"Doctor-"

Gloved fingers stop her, pressing to her lips and keeping that last bit of distance between them unbreeched. "Byleth," Edelgard says, the shift of leather and the sound of her name making her tremble. "I am your therapist." She doesn't sound offended, or bothered at all, her words just a reminder.

_Should you really take that step with an unclear mind?_

She thinks about it a moment, the realization like a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. Edelgard was right, she was her therapist, and in a way her colleague. They barely knew one another and

Byleth knew that the dynamic of their relationship would become incredibly uneven.

"Sorry," Byleth whispers, Edelgard's fingers shifting to brush against her jaw as her hand falls away. "I'm so sorry, I drank too much. Just forget this even happened please."

Edelgard smiles slightly, stepping away from the counter and away from her. "What happened?" she asks, the lilt of her accent holding an air of mischief that wrings a laugh of Byleth.

"Yea exactly, okay before I do something else stupid, I'm going to see if I can sleep through the rest of the night," she says, looking anywhere but Edelgard.

"I pray that you will," Edelgard says, making her way out of the kitchen. "I'll leave you to it."

She stands there until she hears the door click closed and the sound of an engine rumble to life outside. 

"Good work Eisner," she says, rubbing a hand down her face. "Get buzzed and decide to almost kiss your therapist." 

She goes back to bed.

\---------

She's not sure how long it is she gets to sleep before she's torn awake by the shrill ring of her phone, her head pounding slightly as she squints at the clock, realizing she slept through her alarm.   
At least she didn't have any classes until the afternoon.

She fumbles for her phone after a moment, answering it and unsurprised to hear Catherine on the other end in the middle of a conversation with someone. "Hello?" she mutters, feeling faintly guilty for cutting her off.

" _Morning sleeping beauty,_ " Catherine says, vaguely amused. " _We have another body, and no it's not at the BSHCI this time._ " It's a small relief to hear that one, and it makes her huff a laugh as she sits up.

"I didn't think so," she replies, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. "So where is it?"

" _Matthew Henson Trail_ ," Catherine replies, and she thinks she hears Dorothea's voice in the background, calling out to Lysithea. " _It's off the trail in the woods, but it's quite a scene. A couple of hikers found it this morning._ "

She makes a note of it as she gets up, rummaging around slightly. "Alright, I'll be there soon as I can."

" _I hate sounding like a broken record, Byleth,_ " Catherine says, and she's aware of what it is that's about to come out of the other woman's mouth before she says it. " _I really think this is Hegemon, the news about Rhea broke thanks to Kronya and her poking around...so it's likely they saw._ "

She smiles slightly, something thin and fleeting, her theory had been right. "It provoked them," she says, balancing the phone between her shoulder and her ear. "I let it go yesterday hoping the news would break."

" _You wanted this to happen_ ," Catherine says, quiet. " _You wanted Hegemon to be provoked into killing again to prove a point? Byleth-_ "

"Hear me out," she says, cutting off the tirade she can hear coming. "I didn't want anyone to die, I really didn't, but we can use this to lure Hegemon into a trap. They're prideful, so if we keep poking at that pride, we may be able to provoke them into making a mistake." 

Catherine hums her assent. " _You have a point...I don't like the idea of more bodies, but we might not have any other choice but to keep poking the beast as it were_." 

"I don't either, but it might be the only way we finally hook them." She pauses at that, staring down at her selection of clothes, letting her thoughts wonder.

_'Perhaps you should take a break...'_

She couldn't afford to take one now, but the idea sits heavy in the back of her mind as she says her goodbyes and gets ready to leave, stopping to stare at the sink in the kitchen. The memory of last night haunts her, the feeling of Edelgard's fingers against her lips a ghosting sensation that wouldn't leave any time soon.

Aspen meows at her from his spot sitting on the island, tilting his head slightly. "Yea, yea, I know," she mutters, returning to feeding them. 

The drive is a long one and she does her best not to think about anything while she makes it, following her GPS all the way up to when she sees the cars gathered outside one entrance. 

Catherine and Dorothea meet her halfway up the trail, waving her off and into a more forested in area. "I didn't expect to see you here, Dorothea," Byleth says as they walk, ducking under low hanging branches and stepping over thickets of brush.

"When I heard it might be a Hegemon kill. I begged Agent Nevrand to take me, I figured I might be able to offer some insight too. Though I'm just the apprentice, not the resident expert," she shrugs slightly, smiling. "I'm pretty sure it is though; it has all the flags."

"Here it is," Catherine interjects as they step out into a clearing, and she looks up, shocked at the sight of a body crucified to the trunk of a tree. The sight haunts her, shuddering through her at the memory of her nightmare, forcing her to lean against the edge of a nearby tree to just breathe.

It's not the same, but it's too similar. She thinks back to last night, to the odd way Edelgard looked at her and what the other woman said when she spoke about her nightmare, about her behavior. 

She had every right to be suspicious. 

"Byleth?" Dorothea asks from beside her, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright? You look really pale."

"Fine," she lies, straightening. "Just tired." 

"Is it Hegemon?" Catherine asks, looking between her and the body.

"Yea," Byleth affirms, crossing the clearing to look up at the body. The eyes are missing, and in their place, a bandage wraps around the head, far too pristine to have been there when the eyes were removed. "Yea it is."

But there's something off about it. "Has anyone touched the body?" She asks, looking around at all the gathered officers. 

"No, we were all waiting for you as usual, and the hikers that found it said they just reported it soon as they found it...why?" 

She looks back, staring up at the body as she sinks back into what little she can of Hegemon's mind. She sees herself hanging the body, hammering the nails home, and stepping back to look. She sees herself hauling him here and the frustration with the news she had read earlier.

_Justice is blind._

"The mouth is open," she says, glancing back at them. "There's no reason for the mouth to be open."

"I'll check when we do the autopsy later," Ignatz says, shifting. "It could be wildlife-related."

It could be, but there's always a chance it could be something more. It was best to rule it out then overlook something important. 

"Hegemon is frustrated," she says, choosing to move on for the moment. "They think we're blind to something, what I'm not sure...just they're losing faith in us. There's something they're trying to get us to notice, beyond the fact that Rhea isn't the killer."

Or there's something Hegemon is trying to get _her_ to notice.

"What do you think, Dorothea?" She asks, turning to look at the other woman a few feet behind her.

"'Justice is blind,' but normally justice is portrayed as a woman with a sword and a scale, not a crucified man. Maybe it has something to do with the victim? He was blind to something or he saw himself as something he wasn't so Hegemon made an example out of him." 

Byleth nods, humming low in her throat. "Do you still think Hegemon is a woman?" 

"I do, I've looked over everything the FBI has on Hegemon and my theory still stands. Why?" Dorothea crosses her arms as she speaks, sinking her weight into one leg. "Are you on board yet?"

"Yea, I am," she says, really studying the body. "Hegemon may very well be a woman."

"Alright," Catherine says, clapping her hands together. "That's narrowing it down a little, so we're looking for a woman instead of a man. Do you think you two can build more of a profile from there?"

"Absolutely," Dorothea says, nodding. "That's what I've been doing, I'm sure the Professor here can perfect it." 

"You're more perceptive then you give yourself credit for, Dorothea," Byleth says, shrugging. "I think whatever you have will be good."

"Wait until you actually see it before you make judgements," Dorothea replies, laughing. 

"I'll leave that to you two then," Catherine says, waving them off. "You can head off;, I know you have class soon."

"You need a ride, Dorothea?" Byleth asks, glancing.

"Yea, I came here with Agent Nevrand."

Byleth nods, gesturing for her to follow.

\--------

She notices Edelgard in the middle of her lecture, looking back from the slide she was talking about to see the Doctor leaning against the wall by the door. She looks the way she expects her to this time, suit a deep forest green with a black dress shirt. Her hair is down this time, styled the way she normally has it, falling slightly against her shoulders, bangs swept back out of her face.  
Edelgard doesn't notice she's noticed at first, and she keeps going with the lecture, turning back to the slides and the class as a whole. Speaking on the types of symbolism certain killers lean on.

When she glances back towards the end, Edelgard is gone and she thinks nothing of it, figuring the woman was probably here to visit Manuela and came in to watch while she waited.

"That was a really interesting lecture, Professor," Dorothea says once the class has begun to filter out, leaning beside her desk. "I didn't realize how many killers leaned on symbolism like that."

"It's interesting to see how religion and education influence the types of symbolism that's either portrayed on purpose or by accident in different killers," she replies, slipping papers back into her suitcase. "So, I'm interested to see what you have on Hegemon."

"Oh! Right." Dorothea pauses, digging into her bag and pulling a notebook out, flipping through to the page she needs. "Here we are, I wrote a whole bunch of notes and my handwriting is kind of messy so I'm sorry if you can't read all of it."

"It's fine," Byleth replies, scanning over the notes. It's all about the scenes and the subtleties that make her think Hegemon was a woman, a few pages trying to discredit her own theory on the off chance she may have been wrong, making different notes about different scenes from the point of the opposite gender. In the end, she always cycled back.

"I think she might be a cop? Or someone else in the justice system who’s watched too many people walk from things they really should have been put away for," Dorothea says, shifting her weight. "A lawyer maybe? A prosecutor whose lost too many cases to evil people and been forced to watch them walk."

"A lawyer is far too high profile, no matter how skilled they might be, tracing their kills back to them is simple work." 

Byleth looks up in time to see Edelgard wandering in, hands folded behind her back, a slight smile curving on her lips. "Maybe a police officer, or a detective...or even an FBI agent." The smile flickers, her eyes narrowing slightly. "All those departments are much more willing to cover their people, but If I had to take a guess, I'd say you're looking for a police officer or detective."

"Yea," Byleth agrees, looking down at the file. "Maybe."

"Or maybe someone who works with the police?" Dorothea says, shrugging. "Someone from the labs or maybe a consultant?" 

Edelgard's attention swings slightly to where Dorothea stands, raising an eyebrow. "That's a very interesting theory, it's true that Hegemon definitely has knowledge of how evidence works and how not to leave it. Not all consultants would have that knowledge, but one of the lab techs may."

Byleth leans down to make a note of it, then pauses, looking at the two women again. "Right, uh, Dorothea this is Doctor Edelgard Hresvelg, she's...my therapist. Dr. Hresvelg, this is Dorothea Arnault."

"It's nice to finally meet you," Edelgard says, extending a gloved hand. "Byleth mentioned you a few times, so I'm glad to finally be able to put a face to the name."

Dorothea smiles, reaching out to shake her hand. "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Hresvelg. I hope you've been taking good care of the Professor."

"Of course," Edelgard replies, withdrawing her hand when Dorothea releases her hold. "Byleth's health is of utmost importance to me." 

"Doctor Hresvelg has been very understanding and patient with me," Byleth says, shifting. "She's been incredibly helpful. Anyway, back to this profile-"

Catherine is the next to interrupt, coming in in a flurry of motion and mild panic, stopping short when she sees the three of them gathered there. "Oh, you're all here, good. I won't have to go hunting Doctor Hresvelg down." 

Edelgard turns slightly, her head tilting to one side. "What do you mean?"

"The body was tampered with, you were right," Catherine says, by way of answer. "They found a note stuffed into the victim's mouth."

"What'd it say?" Byleth asks, coming around her desk to stand between Dorothea and Edelgard.

"It says 'I know who Hegemon is.'"

The room plunges into perfect silence.

"What a bold accusation," Edelgard says, quiet enough Byleth almost doesn't hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/modulatechaos)


End file.
